Travellers warned of road and rail disruption over Easter

The UK's roads will be filled this Easter Credit: PA

Delays and engineering works could cause a nightmare for travellers hoping to make a holiday getaway this Easter.

Roads are expected to be jammed with around 16 million cars over the weekend while those relying on the rail network face disruption due to major engineering works.

The RAC has forecast that four million motorists will be travelling on Good Friday and around 4.5 million on Easter Sunday while the AA said tomorrow is likely to be the busiest day on the roads.

Trafficmaster predicted the top five busiest stretches of road will be:

  • A303 westbound through Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset

  • M1 from junction 6A (M25 interchange) to junction 13 east of Milton Keynes, and from junction 23A in Leicestershire to junction 32 south of Rotherham

  • M5 from junction 15 north of Bristol towards junction 31 (Exeter)

  • M6 through the West Midlands (from junction 4A) and northwards towards Lancashire (junction 21A)

  • M25 all sections, especially both ways around junctions 14-17 around Heathrow Airport

Highways England, formerly the Highways Agency, said more than 550 miles of roadworks will be lifted over Easter on England's motorways and major A roads.

The agency aims to complete or lift 209 sets of roadworks by tomorrow, with restrictions lifted from 6am until the end of Easter Monday.

A large programme of engineering work on the railways have been planned with a number of major routes affected including the London to Scotland West Coast main line which will be heavily disrupted while Virgin is "strongly recommending" passengers do not travel between Good Friday and Easter Monday.

Major work at Watford means there will be no Virgin or London Midland trains in or out of London's Euston station between Good Friday and Easter Monday.

Virgin trains will run no further south than Milton Keynes, Rugby or Northampton while there will be no direct London Midland services between Euston and Hemel Hempstead.

There will be improvement work on the West Coast line between Crewe and Warrington and between Carlisle and Glasgow which will severely restrict Virgin services to northern England and Scotland.

Network Rail (NR) route managing director Martin Frobisher said of the Watford project: "There is never a good time to carry out this type of work but we have liaised closely with the train operators to plan for it to take place at a quieter time on the railway."

Gatwick Airport is handling around 480,000 passengers between Good Friday and Easter Monday, an 11% increase from last Easter.

The West Sussex airport said that for the Easter school holiday period it would be handling more than two million passengers.