FIRE crews have extinguished a "severe car fire" between junctions 5 (Droitwich) and 4A (Redditch, M42) today which closed the northbound carriageway of the motorway and caused delays of up to half an hour.

The fire, which happened in the hard shoulder at around, 9.29am this morning, caused delays of up to half an hour.

At just after 10am the fire was extinguished and fire crews reopened lanes two and three allowing the release of some traffic with lane one remaining closed while the damage to the road was assessed and the diesel cleared from the road surface.

A Highways England spokesman confirmed that the carriageway was fully reopened at 12.04pm.