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Britons looking to get away for the bank holiday weekend and the start of the school holidays have been warned not to travel between 11am and 6pm amid an expected onslaught of Easter getaway traffic.
More than 14 million people are set to take to Britain’s roads over the four-day weekend with drivers told their planned journeys could take twice as long as usual amid what has been dubbed by the RAC as “carmageddon”.
Planned engineering works on Network Rail’s West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Scotland have forced more travellers to use the motorways to reach their destinations, further increasing the number of cars on the road.
Creating one of the busiest Easter weekends in recent memory, the bank holiday then leads into a two-week school holiday for many children, adding extra pressure to Britain’s roads.
Meanwhile, forecasters have warned of heavy rain, strong winds and potential flooding after Storm Nelson hit southern England overnight.
Gusts of up to 70mph, hazardous downpours, and large hailstones have been predicted.
The Met Office issued a yellow warning for the storm, which stopped at 6pm Thursday, but the forecaster expected strong winds and torrential weather to continue, leaving the Easter weekend a near-washout for many.
Frank Bird, senior network planner for National Highways, warned drivers to get away as soon as possible this morning, or wait until roads were clear later in the evening.
“Try to avoid the 11am to 6pm window. That’s when we expect the vast majority of people to be travelling,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“We would really encourage people to get out early if they can, get the bulk of their journey done before 11am or then leave it until 6pm – otherwise you’re just going to be sat in delays and congestion.”
Mr Bird said National Highways had already seen a “very busy” Mornday Thursday and expected the travel chaos to continue over the coming days as families look to get away at the start of school holidays.
Three of Britain’s major airports have already warned that the coming days will be their busiest ever for an Easter weekend, catering for around two million passengers over the next few days.
Bristol Airport said it was preparing for 30,000 holiday-goers to take off from its runway alone on Easter Sunday, while London Luton said it predicted up to 38 passengers a minute.
Mr Bird also warned of severe congestion getting to the Port of Dover as many Brits look to use ferries and the Channel Tunnel to travel into Europe.
The Port of Dover said the current processing time for those arriving for ferries was around two hours just before 10am Friday. It said the queues were as expected for the peak weekend.
“Already we’re seeing around two kilometres of traffic queuing to get into the port,” the National Highways boss said early Friday morning.
“We do think over the next few hours that those queues are going to get slightly larger as thousands of people head towards the port of Dover because it’s the main gateway to get into Europe.”
The motorway operator has already installed “Operation Tap”, Mr Bird said to control the ingress of traffic into the port of Dover.
“We have got plans in place,” he stressed. “If the situation gets significantly worse, we also have a second operation called ‘Operation Brock’.”
He said National Highways would install traffic cones on the M20 after Maidstone – which has been at the roadside for the past week in readiness for the Easter travel chaos.
National Highways is working Kent authorities and the port of Dover to “ease the traffic as much as possible”, he added.
The National Highways boss also warned travellers to steer clear of the A1(M) heading out of north London towards Stevenage due to emergency repairs. He said roadworks would be completed by Saturday afternoon, depending on the weather.
