Traffic news live: Easter travel disruption warning with hundreds of train closures planned

The AA and RAC agree the busiest day over the Easter spell will likely be Thursday, with 19.8 million motorists of their autos at some stage of the day.

Good Friday seems to be virtually as busy. Easter Sunday will see the lightest site visitors.

For vacation journeys throughout the UK, The Unbiased has used information from earlier years to foretell the heaviest site visitors on 4 key arteries:

• M6 north of Birmingham, particularly Preston and past as holidaymakers head for Blackpool and the Lake District.
• M5 southwest from Birmingham to Bristol and Exeter
• A303 southwest via Wiltshire
• M25 significantly between the M23 and M40 junctions to the southwest, and the Dartford Crossing to the east.

Britons hoping to flee to among the UK’s prime staycation spots for an Easter break have been informed to anticipate disruptive heavy rain.

The Met Workplace has issued a yellow climate warning for the southwest of England on Friday, protecting vacationer hotspots together with Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.

The forecasters warned {that a} extended spell of rain, a few of it heavy, will possible trigger troublesome driving circumstances and a few disruption to journey as hundreds of thousands hit the highway over the Financial institution Vacation weekend.

Aviation analytics agency Cirium says Good Friday, 18 April, would be the busiest day general, with 2,949 flights taking off from UK airports – a departure each 30 seconds on common.

Britain’s greatest finances airline, easyJet, confirms its busiest day will likely be Good Friday.

The service plans greater than 1,100 flights to or from UK airports carrying as much as 145,000 passengers.

The highest sunshine locations are Dalaman in Turkey and the Spanish islands of Mallorca and Tenerife.

However with air site visitors management centres throughout Europe nonetheless chronically in need of workers, holidaymakers face the worst disruption brought on by congestion within the skies in a quarter-century.

Ryanair says 36.2 million of its passengers have been impacted by air site visitors management restrictions within the final yr, with greater than 200,000 flights delayed.

Travellers to and from France and Spain are worst affected.

Drivers face a “hat-trick of hold-ups” because the financial institution vacation weekend coincides with the top of the Easter holidays for a lot of colleges, a motoring organisation warned.

RAC breakdown spokesperson Alice Simpson urged drivers to anticipate “extraordinarily excessive ranges of site visitors from Thursday onwards”.

She mentioned: “The late financial institution vacation weekend clashes with the top of the Easter break for a lot of colleges – which we expect will change the character of this yr’s getaway.

“Though journey numbers are nonetheless very excessive, we’re anticipating extra day journeys and weekend breaks than folks heading off on one and two-week stints.

“This might result in a hat-trick of hold-ups on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as drivers go to household and buddies.”

Greater than 1,000 miles of roadworks in England will likely be lifted to ease the Easter getaway, the Division for Transport has introduced.

Nationwide Highways will take away roadworks from 1,127 miles of motorways and main A roads by 6am on Thursday, that means 97.5 per cent of its community will likely be freed from site visitors cones.

They won’t be reinstated till after Easter Monday.

A flood warning has been issued in Devon following an evening of heavy rain within the county.

The Setting Company issued the warning for the decrease River Torridge, from Dolton to Bideford, together with Taddiport and Weare Giffard.

It mentioned properties in low-lying areas are susceptible to flooding after river ranges rose to simply beneath 11ft (3.3m).

Devon County Council’s highways workforce mentioned it acquired stories of bushes down on roads together with the A396 in Bampton, the A3072 close to Crediton, and the A375 in Gittisham.

The RAC warned that if the forecast heavy rain on Good Friday hits the South West of England and South Wales then there might be widespread disruption.

Britons hoping to flee to among the UK’s prime staycation spots for an Easter break have been informed to anticipate disruptive heavy rain.

The Met Workplace has issued a yellow climate warning for the south west of England on Friday, protecting vacationer hotspots together with Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.

The forecasters warned {that a} extended spell of rain, a few of it heavy, will possible trigger troublesome driving circumstances and a few disruption to journey as hundreds of thousands hit the highway over the Financial institution Vacation weekend.

It mentioned flooding of some properties and companies, affected bus and prepare companies and a few interruption to energy provides have been doable.

The warning will come into impact at 6pm on Friday and stay in place till 9am on Saturday.

Easter marks the primary actually busy spell of 2025 for the UK’s airports, with some areas together with Birmingham anticipating report passenger numbers.

The Unbiased has learnt the busiest days for some key airports are anticipated to be as follows:

• Bristol 18-21 April
• Edinburgh 20 April
• Gatwick 18 April
• Glasgow 20 April
• Liverpool 18 April
• Luton 18 April
• Manchester 18 April