Easter no getaway! Drivers are stuck in ‘horrendous’ 20-mile long queues on Britain’s motorways in Easter Friday ‘carmageddon’ with staycationers clogging up routes to Devon …

By Jon Brady[1] and Oliver Price[2]

Published: 18:17, 29 March 2024 | Updated: 19:46, 29 March 2024

Travellers making the most of the Easter weekend[3] are stuck in ‘horrendous’ 20-mile long queues on major motorways – as staycationers clog up routes to Devon and Cornwall and holidayers are met with long delays at the Port of Dover.

Around 2.6million car journeys are expected on Good Friday[4], with many motorists today head to the Channel as there is also ‘significant’ congestion around the M25 and roads in the South West and South East.

This comes despite warnings of ‘carmageddon’[5] and ferry firm DFDS predicting disruption ‘due to strong winds’ on Thursday, while rail passengers contend with the impact of Storm Nelson.

Queues of 15 to 20 miles were seen on the M4 and M5 interchange near Bristol, which is adding 45 minutes on to journey times.

Meanwhile, the western side of the M25 was described as ‘pretty bad’ and a ‘lot worse than normal’, with 40-minute queues.

Are you caught up in Easter weekend chaos? Email [email protected][6]

Build ups on the M25 near Addlestone, Surrey, earlier on Friday as the getaways began. More than two million car journeys will set off today

A long single-file queue of traffic on the A35 in Dorset on Good Friday – some of the millions of journeys believed to be undertaken today as Brits head off on break

Easter bank holiday traffic builds up with speed restrictions on the M5 motorway going south past Bristol for the Easter holiday

Passengers queue for ferries at the Port of Dover in Kent as the getaway continues for the Easter weekend

Hundreds of people queue for Eurostar train services at St Pancras International Station as they make their Easter getaway

It was also busy on the top-end of the M20, with congestion heading into Folkestone.

RAC spokesman Simon Williams said: ‘Everyone’s heading to Devon and Cornwall, that’s the attraction, and there’s been a bit of better weather.

‘It’s causing some pretty horrendous queues.’

This afternoon, holidaymakers still faced 90 minute delays at the Port of Dover, down from two hours.

Ben Oswald, from the Isle of Man was heading to France[7] for a week-long fishing trip. He had been queuing on the A20 for two hours with his son trying to enter the port – with another two hour wait expected before he can get through Border Control.

Speaking from his car he said: ‘It took me five hours to get from the Isle of Man to our AirBnB[8] in London yesterday – and it’s going to take longer to get out of this queue!

‘It’s a complete nightmare.

You’d think they’d changed something with the systems but no, they just can’t cope. Unbelievable.’

Steve Gouldon from Chatham, Kent arrived at the Port four hours ahead of his ferry to be safe while Dimtry Rizny, 42, and his young family are also heading to Switzerland to ski – but missed their ferry.

And two million Britons are expected to jet off abroad for the long weekend – with big queues forming at some of the country’s major airports today.

But some train services are not going ahead due to pre-planned engineering works on the southern end of the West Coast Mainline – turning the normally frantic London[9] Euston railway station into a ghost town.

And incidents on some of the motorways on Friday have threatened to disrupt thousands of journeys across the country.

Crashes were reported on the M5, causing an 85 minute delay, and on the M40 – both roads have since re-opened, albeit with knock-on hold-ups to traffic.

The Port of Dover says traffic is continuing to move smoothly – with ferry operators thanking travellers for the patience at the border

The queues are only expected to grow as thousands more drivers take to the roads and make for the ferries (Pictured: Lorries snaking along the A20)

A quiet concourse at London Euston station on Good Friday. Engineering works at the southern end of the West Coast Mainline mean fewer trains are running than normal

Many services that would normally depart from London Euston are departing from elsewhere

No such disruption at London King’s Cross where families set off on railway journeys along the East Coast Mainline without issue

Crowds at London’s Liverpool Street station on Good Friday as they set off on Easter weekend getaways

Travellers at Manchester Airport on Good Friday. Airport bosses say they expect 320,000 people to jet off over the weekend

Life-long Dover resident Colin Weir, 57, said that while freight being stopped from entering the town has helped, the traffic has a big effect on the town

He said: ‘Of course people don’t want to come into Dover today. I won’t be taking my car out.

Not a chance.

‘It’s worse around Christmas.

‘I mean, they’re prepared a bit but there’s no real preparation. No one had ever made think about the actual problem, which is capacity.’

Factory-manager Colin added: ‘Dover could be such a lovely beautiful town – but instead it’s just somewhere where everyone travels through. We don’t see the benefits of the port.’

The disruption has left locals frustrated.

Sophie Cottham, 53, lives in Dover and works at the Castle.

Sophie, who moved to the town from the Cotswolds three years ago, said: ‘They have improved it from a couple of years ago.

‘Lorries used to cut through the town and cause chaos, but now they get sent right the way back to Folkestone.

‘But the congestion on the M20 today means locals just don’t come into town – on a busy days like Good Friday.

‘It seems that when everywhere else gets a bank holiday boost – Dover ends up with fewer people than it would on a weekday.

‘It’s very difficult for local businesses, particularly around Christmas when it is bedlam.’

And Network Rail has urged train passengers to check their journey details before they travel because some major routes will be closed due to engineering work – with 493 upkeep projects happening across the Easter period.

The West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Milton Keynes, used by Avanti West Coast trains to and from Scotland, is shut for four days from today.

Network Rail said it was laying new track near Kensal Green tunnel in north west London and replacing a busy junction just south of Milton Keynes.

Buses will run from Potters Bar to Watford Junction and Milton Keynes to London.

There will also be disruption to ScotRail services because of work to renew tracks and points over a major junction between Glasgow Central and Cambuslang and Polmadie Depot.

And in West Yorkshire, work will continue on the TransPennine Route Upgrade, with new tracks being laid around Huddersfield.

This will mean changes to trains on routes such as Sheffield to Leeds and all trains to Huddersfield itself.

Greater Anglia warned of disruption across its routes because of construction work for the new Beaulieu Park station in Chelmsford, as well as track maintenance work.

Train services between London and many East Anglia locations, including Norwich, Ipswich and Colchester, will be replaced by buses for part of the journey.

And in London, the Elizabeth line will be closed due to engineering work through the centre of the capital between London Paddington and Stratford and Abbey Wood.

Network Rail’s[10] network strategy director Laurence Bowman said: ‘There’s never a good time to do the work we need to do but the four days of the bank holiday, when fewer people are travelling, give us the opportunity to do major work we couldn’t do in normal weekend.’

On the south coast, the Port of Dover[11] authority said shortly before 11am today that queues were at least two hours long – but advised that French border controls were ‘flowing well’ despite delays caused by last night’s stormy weather.

It said on X, formerly Twitter: ‘The tourist processing time is around two hours from arrival at the Port as we approach our peak travel time on Good Friday. Thank you to the local community for your patience as we work to keep traffic moving.’

Passengers prepare to drop off their bags at Heathrow Terminal Two ahead of jetting off on Good Friday for the Easter weekend

The British Airways check-in desks at Heathrow Terminal Five are packed with passengers

Holidaymakers make their way into the departure lounge at Bristol Airport early on Friday. It is expecting 30,000 passengers on Easter Sunday alone

Cars queueing at the Port of Dover as they wait to make journeys overseas. French passport control may be imposing additional security checks following the Moscow terror attack

Traffic on the A20 in Dover winding its way through the town in order to reach the port. Thousands of vehicles are expected to pass through today

Queues for the Eurotunnel at Folkestone in Kent as the Easter break gets under way. Some travellers chose to use the ferries as they were reportedly cheaper to book

Kent County Council has enacted Operation Brock, partially closing the M20 to allow EU-bound lorries to queue on the carriageway

The Port of Dover said queues were moving well in Kent this morning – but this has been disputed by travellers said to be among those waiting to set off on holiday

Motorists wind their way along the A303 past Stonehenge in Wiltshire as they set off for Easter getaways. More than 2.6million journeys are expected to be made today

Electrician David Quick, 57, and wife Mary Jane are heading to Amsterdam for a long weekend away.

The Orpington couple said they are going to the Netherlands to take in the tulips, but had already missed their booked ferry to Calais.

After 70 minutes of gridlock, David said: ‘If it was like when you fly and you get text updates it would be so much better.

‘But there’s just nothing. No information.

You just queue and wait. It’s so frustrating.’

Dimtry Rizny, 42, and his young family are also heading to Switzerland to ski.

Dimitry was left waiting over an hour with wife Dina, 36, and their two teenage children, after coming from Chigwell, Essex, for a 9.10am ferry – which they missed.

He said: ‘There could be more done to mitigate this. It was expected for so long.’

But several travellers have taken to social media to blast the long queues building for the boats – even in the twilight hours.

‘Horrendous queues at 2am, 3hrs to get through, and you say it’s due to enhanced security checks?’ asked one traveller on X.

Another said: ‘Taken three hours to get through to check in’, while a third holidaymaker, responding to the Port’s social media profile, said: ‘Wished we’d taken the tunnel.’

Port boss Doug Bannister told Sky News[12] of the initial hold-ups: ‘We suffered a bit of a backlog overnight because of the weather impacting on sailings, but we’ve got back on top of it’.

Port workers in bright orange jumpsuits could be seen directing traffic into the lengthy queues as travellers and truckers alike made for the continent.

Ferry companies have asked travellers to be patient as the queues continue to build throughout Friday morning.

P&O Ferries said on X: ‘Good morning, there are currently queues in the Port of Dover.

Please don’t worry if you miss your sailing, we’ll get you on the next available ship once you’re through check-in.’

DFDS said of its Dover-France route: ‘All services are currently operating with delays due to the earlier strong winds in the Channel.

‘Please check-in as normal, we will transfer all passengers onto the first available sailing on arrival. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.’

Kent County Council has mounted Operation Brock on the M20, partially closing the coastbound motorway to non-freight traffic heading for Dover.

Some 20,000 cars are expected to pass through over the Easter long weekend, as well as just over 9,000 freight lorries.

Ferry firm Stena Line said bookings on Irish Sea routes are up 115 per cent on an average weekend at this time of year and have increased by 26 per cent on Easter weekend 2023.

Journeys could also be delayed due to extra border security checks by the French after the concert hall attack in Moscow last Friday[13] that killed more than 130 people.

The Port said in an ‘Easter holidays travel information’ update on X earlier this week: ‘France has heightened its border security checks[14] following the attack in Moscow on Sunday.

‘These measures may increase border processing times at the Port. Please be mindful of this when travelling to the port and check with your ferry operator for arrival times.’

Queues were already building at the Port of Dover in Kent for the big Easter bank holiday getaway early on Friday

The Port of Dover said earlier that queues were running in excess of 90 minutes but that French border controls were ‘flowing well’

The southern section of the West Coast Main Line will be closed between Good Friday and Easter Monday, with replacement buses replacing Avanti West Coast trains in some areas

MailOnline has also revealed eye-watering costs for a flight over the four-day Easter weekend

Good Friday is expected to be a much milder affair than yesterday, with temperatures hitting the mid-teens later in the day and some scattered showers

Xavier Jahouen, 50, was travelling to the Swiss Alps with his family for end-of-season skiing from his home in Southampton.

Normandy-born Xavier, travelling with wife Isabelle, 48, son Alexei, 18, and daughter Amy, 14, said: ‘It’s absolutely ridiculous.

We are in 2024. This mess has been happening for 10 years and no one has done anything at all.

‘They know this is coming. They could have got more passport control officers and got more organised but they haven’t.’

He added: ‘This has to be more efficient. Open more gates.

If you know more people are booked in, then open more gates!’

Retired Brit Richard Walker, 78, and his French wife Karrin, 52, are travelling back to their home in France after attending a funeral in Hampshire.

Their planned crossing last night was cancelled – with the pair forced to delay until this morning to return to their home 70 miles south of Paris.

Richard said: ‘The communication was all right when they told us the crossing was cancelled last night because the information came as soon as they got it.

‘But since we got here we have had nothing – we have to rely on radio bulletins.’

Karrin added: ‘It’s a bank holiday. Surely they must know and can put measures into place?

‘Why is there an hour-and-a-half delay?’

Ben Oswald, from the Isle of Man, was heading to France for a week-long fishing trip – only to find himself in a queue up to four hours long on the A20 and at the port itself as he waited for Border Control.

He said: ‘It took me five hours to get from the Isle of Man to our AirBnB in London yesterday – and it’s going to take longer to get out of this queue!

‘It’s a complete nightmare. You’d think they’d changed something with the systems but no, they just can’t cope.

Unbelievable.’

Father-of-two Steve Gouldon from Chatham said: ‘I’ve got loads of time but it still doesn’t look good. We are going to be stuck here for a long time. But that’s why we left so much time to get in.’

The disruption has left locals frustrated.

Dover resident Sophie Cottham, 53, said: ‘They have improved it from a couple of years ago. Lorries used to cut through the town and cause chaos, but now they get sent right the way back to Folkestone.

‘But the congestion on the M20 today means locals just don’t come into town – on a busy day like Good Friday.

It seems that when everywhere else gets a bank holiday boost – Dover ends up with fewer people than it would on a weekday.

‘It’s very difficult for local businesses, particularly around Christmas when it is bedlam.’

Ferry company DFDS reported that its services at Dover were running with delays ‘due to strong winds in the Channel’.

Wightlink said ferries to the Isle of Wight were ‘busy’, but running on time.

As for Britons taking to the skies, trade organisation Abta said airports are reporting ‘strong numbers’.

Around 175,000 Britons are due to leave from Stansted, 105,000 from Luton, 160,000 from Manchester, 79,000 from Birmingham, and 89,000 from Edinburgh, all between Friday and Monday.

Manchester Airport managing director Chris Woodroofe said: ‘It’s exciting that record numbers of people will be taking off from here this Easter: 320,000 people will travel (through the airport) over the bank holiday weekend – that’s up 7 per cent on April 2023.’

Glasgow predicts more than 90,000 passengers over the four days while Birmingham Airport said it expects a 27.2 per cent increase in departures compared to last year over the full Easter period.

Bristol, which predicts 30,000 holiday trips on Easter Sunday alone[15], advised: ‘If travelling with Easter eggs, passengers are advised to keep any chocolate treats in your cabin baggage and to make sure they’re easily accessible as they may need to be opened for a quick check.’

Liverpool Airport expects around 60,000 passengers over the four days, which is around 7 per cent higher than last year.

But families returning from their breaks are also set to face further Easter[16] holiday travel chaos next month when more than 600 Border Force officials at Heathrow[17] will strike over shifts.

The strike is set to begin on April 11 and end four days later on April 14 – just as families return from their Easter holidays.

Trade union PCS, which balloted its members on the walkouts[18], labelled a lack of consultation with staff ahead of changes to shift patterns a ‘farce’.

Nelson brought unexpected weather for some parts of the country – including on Dartmoor, in Devon, which found itself blanketed in snow

Pedestrians braved the heavy rain and gusty conditions on Westminster Bridge as Storm Nelson hit on Thursday

Large waves crash over the harbour wall as Storm Nelson arrived at Newhaven in Sussex yesterday

Good Friday is set to be a day of sunshine and blustery scattered showers, coming after unsettled conditions which have seen hailstones hit parts of Cornwall.

Elsewhere, in any sunshine it could feel warm, with highs of 14C expected in the south east of England but there is the risk of the odd thunderstorm, the Met Office said last night.

The driest weather is expected in the far north east of the UK and there could be a windy start to the day in many regions.

Deputy chief meteorologist Dan Harris said: ‘The weather is expected to gradually improve following the widely unsettled spell of the past few days, with a fairly typical mix of spring-like weather across the UK.

‘There will be some sunshine, and it will feel increasingly warm for most as the winds become lighter.

‘However, the west and especially south west is likely to see passing showers too, which could be quite heavy and frequent at times.

‘Eastern coastal districts are also likely to feel increasingly cold as an onshore breeze develops, threatening persistent low cloud in some areas too.’

It’s an improvement to the highly changeable conditions across the country on Thursday, which saw regions hit with rain, gale force winds, hailstones and even snow across the day.

A survey by motoring company RAC and transport analysis company Inrix suggests 14 million trips by road could be made across the weekend.

Two popular routes for holidaymakers – the M5 southbound between Bristol and Taunton, and the M3 between the M25 and the south coast – are likely to be congested.

Turkey, Dubai and the Canary Islands are among the most popular destinations abroad and trips to Dublin are also in demand.

Tourist board VisitEngland said around 11million people in the UK are planning an overnight Easter trip, generating an estimated GBP3.2billion for the economy.

VisitEngland chief executive Patricia Yates said: ‘Tourism businesses and destinations will be looking to the critical Easter weekend for much-needed cash flow after the lean winter months so it’s really encouraging to see so many of us are planning a holiday at home.

‘We also know from our latest research that the cost of living remains a concern and while people are still keen to take a break, many are booking late, taking shorter breaks, wanting to save on accommodation, activities and eating out, highlighting the ongoing challenges for industry.’

Easter Sunday also sees the UK move to British Summer Time (BST) where clocks go forward by one hour.

References

1. ^ Jon Brady (www.dailymail.co.uk)
2. ^ Oliver Price (www.dailymail.co.uk)
3. ^ Easter weekend (www.dailymail.co.uk)
4. ^ car journeys are expected on Good Friday (www.dailymail.co.uk)
5. ^ despite warnings of ‘carmageddon’ (www.dailymail.co.uk)
6. ^ [email protected] (www.dailymail.co.uk)
7. ^ France (www.dailymail.co.uk)
8. ^ AirBnB (www.dailymail.co.uk)
9. ^ London (www.dailymail.co.uk)
10. ^ Network Rail’s (www.dailymail.co.uk)
11. ^ Port of Dover (www.dailymail.co.uk)
12. ^ Sky News (news.sky.com)
13. ^ the concert hall attack in Moscow last Friday (www.dailymail.co.uk)
14. ^ heightened its border security checks (www.dailymail.co.uk)
15. ^ predicts 30,000 holiday trips on Easter Sunday alone (www.dailymail.co.uk)
16. ^ Easter (www.dailymail.co.uk)
17. ^ Heathrow (www.dailymail.co.uk)
18. ^ Trade union PCS, which balloted its members on the walkouts (www.dailymail.co.uk)