The Aston Expressway could stay open during the summer weekends - if the weather's bad enough.

A decision on whether to shut the busy route over the upcoming weekends will be taken on a weekly basis as roadworks could be halted due to adverse weather.

Highways England is planning to close the road for up to seven weekends this summer - starting tomorrow - to enable repair and waterproofing works to be carried out.

The transport body will be meeting with Birmingham City Council in the days leading up to each weekend to decide whether the closures can go ahead - and the weather gods will have the final say.

Police are also being the green light to tackle the abuse of bus lanes around the city - otherwise done by camera enforcement - in order to keep public transport moving as these major roadworks continue.

The developments were outlined at Birmingham City Council's economy scrutiny committee which heard from officers at Highways England.

Alistair Harris, a spokesman for the government agency, told the committee: "Meetings will be held on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and, once a decision is taken, we will then inform stakeholders such as the media and councillors.

"The final decision on whether to close the Aston Expressway will be taken at midday on the Friday but we don't want to tell people roads will be closed if they're not.

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"We have arranged for the police to look at bus lanes to ensure they are free and have allocated extra resource to urban traffic teams.

"If people are sitting in bus lanes, then they will be moved on. There's not much else the police can do but it's better than nothing."

The committee heard that, although the closure of the Expressway was planned for seven weekends to coincide with the school holidays, the work was expected to take less time than this.

It would require four weekends of severe weather for this deadline not to be met, the committee was told.

These closures are part of wider works to repair the roads around junction six of the M6 including slip roads leading off the Aston Expressway onto the motorway.

The exit from the Park Circus roundabout onto the Aston Expressway is also closed while traffic cannot access the M6 in either direction from Salford Circus roundabout on the A38 Tyburn Road.

Mr Harris told the committee that a series of communication measures had been put in place to inform people of the disruption.

This included distributing around 75,000 leaflets, putting inserts in with tickets for concerts and major shows in the city and a 'pinpoint' text message service sent to people's phones if they are in an area likely to be affected by the roadworks.