The road, which was originally known as the "Shotwick – Helsby Bypass", was completed in the mid-1930s. The construction was contemporaneous to other major transport projects in the region such as the
East Lanc Road and the opening of the first
Mersey tunnel. The road was envisaged to become part of a link that connected the
A56 from
Manchester to
North Wales via the
Jubilee Bridge at
Queensferry, Flintshire. Several sections of the road were constructed in concrete. Vehicles experience an up and down vertical motion due to the need for "summit and valley" drainage as the road crosses the flood plain of the
River Gowy.
Poplar trees were planted along the road (most are now only adjacent to the short section passed
Stanlow Refinery). The new road was planned to be eventually incorporated into a dualled trunk road that would connect the North West of England with the industries of North Wales. However, with the outbreak of the
Second World War, all major civil engineering projects were cancelled for the duration of conflict. In 1946 the
Ministry of War Transport issued the
Showing Future Pattern of Principal National Routes which called for a new type of highway that would be restricted to specified classes of vehicle; which led to the
Special Roads Act 1949. In 1947 the first proposal for a motorway across north
Cheshire was mooted in a report commissioned by
Cheshire County Council, with a line for the route of the motorway being agreed in 1958 between the council and the
Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. Construction began in 1968, and the motorway opened in stages between 1971 and 1981: By the late seventies, the M56 had approached the Helsby end of the A5117 road. Since the 1960s, the road had been marked out as a
three-lane single carriageway, where the middle lane was known popularly as the "suicide" lane because overtaking vehicles drove towards each other at speed from both directions. Despite the original intention of the road's 1930 planners for it to be incorporated into a major highway (along its entire length, it was built with a wide width and setback bridge parapets for additional lanes, and extra drainage channels to accommodate a bigger road), when it came to building the final section of the M56 into North Wales, the road had been deemed obsolete and too costly to upgrade. Instead a new southerly route was chosen, which opened in 1981. The M56 crosses the Gowy on a purpose-built embankment made of
sandstone before it reaches a new junction with the
M53 at
Stoak. As the route of the M56 bypassed the A5117 road, it was relegated to a secondary route between the M56 and the
A55. It continues to be used as an alternative to the motorway but for much of its length it remains single carriageway in both directions apart from a short duelled section near
Elton, Cheshire. ==Current configurations==