Severe delays as holidaymakers head south

The M5 is predicted to be “one of the worst roads for delays in the country” throughout the bank holiday weekend.

The motorway had more than 30 miles of tailbacks between Bristol and Taunton, Somerset, earlier as people travelled south for the weekend.

Traffic monitoring site Inrix showed travel time between junction J16 (The M4 interchange) and J20 (Clevedon) at about 80 minutes for several hours, but this has now cleared.

A National Highways spokesperson said the “severe delays” of more than an hour were due to “to the sheer volume of traffic”.

More delays are expected Saturday.