Road and Rail Users Face Bank Holiday Travel Chaos

Press Association
Friday August 22, 2003

UK road and rail travellers are facing delays and disruption this bank holiday weekend, as key railway lines close due to an engineering programme and forecast sunny weather attracts motorists to the coast.
On what is traditionally a busy weekend, engineering works will close parts of the Great Western main line between London and Cornwall.

With many people attending events such as the Reading music festival and the Wales versus England rugby international in Cardiff, the numbers affected are potentially even larger than usual.

Holidaymakers flying abroad from Stansted may not fare much better. The Stansted Express rail service, which runs from central London, will not be operating on Sunday and Monday. Coaches will replace the trains, but are likely to face delays because of roadworks on the M11.

Engineering work being undertaken by Network Rail, the successor to Railtrack, will close parts of the West Coast and East Coast main lines, and cause disruption on the Midland main line.

And although the Highways Agency has promised to remove as many roadworks as possible on the UK’s motorway and trunk road network, there will still be roadworks on sections of the M1, M4, M5, M6, M11 and M25.

A statement from the AA warned: "Traffic volumes could be high, especially with the rail repairs being carried out.

"We would encourage people to leave as early as possible to beat the queues, especially if travelling to an organised event. We predict it to be worse than it would normally be on a bank holiday weekend.

"As well as leaving extra time for journeys, drivers should tune in to local radio stations for travel updates, avoid driver fatigue by taking a break every couple of hours, and plan routes."

Forecasters predicted mainly dry and sunny weather over the weekend, with temperatures as high as 27C (81F) in southern England.

The transport minister, Kim Howells, defended the rail closures, saying that shutting lines for an extended period would enable work to be carried out more efficiently and result in savings of between £400m and £600m.

· The Association of British Travel Agents estimates that 1.6 million Britons will head overseas this weekend. Today was expected to be the busiest day at UK airports.

Abta said that Mediterranean resorts in Majorca, the Canary Islands, mainland Spain and the Greek islands remain the August holiday favourites, with Italy, Cyprus and Turkey following closely behind.

The association added that, this year, travel agents had also benefited from booking their customers on British breaks as, according to VisitBritain, the heatwave has contributed to a possible rise in domestic bookings of between 3% and 4%.