What M1 Closures Are There Tonight?
If you are driving the M1 overnight — a night trunk run up to the East Midlands depots, an early start to beat the queues round Luton, or a long haul north towards Sheffield and Leeds — this page shows the closures reported as affecting the motorway tonight.
Listed below: everything reported as affecting the M1 between 6pm and 6am, newest first. See all M1 traffic news »
What “tonight” means on this page
Tonight runs from 6pm to 6am. Before 6am you are still inside last night’s window, so at 1am this page is still showing you tonight and not tomorrow. We list anything affecting that window, not only things starting in it: a closure that began three weeks ago and is still in place at 1am affects your journey tonight just as much as one that starts at 10pm. Where a start or end time is shown it is National Highways’ own stated time, not our estimate.
What usually closes a motorway overnight
Most overnight closures are planned, and most are one of a handful of things: resurfacing; a section shut completely with a signed diversion; lane closures with traffic still moving; a contraflow; road marking and maintenance; and abnormal loads moved at night under escort precisely because the road is quiet. Those are the categories National Highways publishes in its traffic data.
If nothing is showing
An empty list is good news, not a broken page. It means there are no closures we are aware of affecting the M1 tonight. Works are sometimes added late or cancelled without the record being updated, so it is not a guarantee of a clear run, but it is the best picture available. Everything reported on the M1, day and night, is on our latest M1 traffic news page.
The M1 overnight
The M1 is the main road between London and Yorkshire, and much of what moves along it at night is freight heading for the distribution centres around Daventry, Northampton, Leicester and the East Midlands. An overnight closure on the M1 rarely just delays a car; it can send a lorry onto a long signed diversion through towns it was never meant to see.