M23 motorway

The M23 is a motorway in England, running from the south of Hooley in Surrey to Pease Pottage, connected to the south of the significant town of Crawley in West Sussex. Hooley is immediately south of the London Borough of Croydon. Both ends of the motorway form a de-merger from (and merger back into) the A23 which runs from London to Brighton.

Its northernmost part amounts to a 2-mile (3.2 km) spur north of junction 7 of the M25 motorway (junction 8 of the M23) which has spur roads for all directions (is a stack interchange) and intuitively would be numbered 1 – as a long, publicly opposed section further to the north was never built. During its 17 miles (27 km) length it runs without a serving junction for central parts of Redhill, Surrey, as its next and busiest junction is for Gatwick Airport and it concludes with three, widely spaced out, for Crawley which also serve Horsham and East Grinstead. It cuts through the a gap in the North Downs and a slight gap in the Greensand Ridge, long mainly wooded hill ranges, locally part of the Surrey Hills National Landscape. For the airport to its west, junction 9, has no direct routes to the more rural east; however sweeping to the north-west point of the airport, the M23 Spur gives ready access to Horley, Charlwood and all the northernmost parts and associated out of town workplaces of Crawley.

To the south the A23 is a dualled trunk road so far as the city of Brighton, whereas to the north it sees long single-carriageway urban parts, in the centre of Hooley, north Coulsdon, south Purley, and no traffic-prioritised continuations to reach Inner London, which was the original scheme behind the motorway.