‘Devon dash’ drivers face 20-mile Good Friday queues

Bank holiday congestion twinned with Storm Nelson results in motorway tailbacks and disruption to ferry and rail services

What could be more British than spending the first day of the long weekend in a motorway queue? For drivers doing the “Devon dash” down to the South West, their Good Friday journey proved to be something of a trial.
Drivers were snared in 20-mile queues on the M4 and M5 interchange near Bristol thanks to a broken-down lorry, which added 45 minutes onto journey times.
Meanwhile, the western side of the M25 was described as a “lot worse than normal”, with 40-minute queues for anyone heading south west from London.
The RAC said motorists heading south were behind much of the congestion after forecasters predicted sunnier spells there over the next few days.
Simon Williams, the RAC spokesman, told the PA news agency: “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.”
It was also busy on the top end of the M20, with congestion heading into Folkestone. The seaside town and Dover were suffering large amounts of traffic as people flocked to the port to board ferries to France but high winds on the Channel caused by Storm Nelson led to delayed departures and long wait times.
Ferry company DFDS reported that its services at Dover were running with delays “due to strong winds in the Channel” on Thursday.
Twenty thousand cars are expected to travel through the Port of Dover between Thursday and Easter Monday. 
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.
Storm Nelson battered the coastline on Thursday and Friday, with the public urged to avoid the beach in Seaton, Devon, after a row of beach huts were destroyed in 80mph winds. Further up the coast in Dorset, a van towing a caravan was blown over, blocking one lane of the A35 at Litton Cheney.
Great Western Railways closed a number of lines on Thursday owing to flooding, with all lines between Westbury and Swindon shut and the main line from Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads also closed.
Network Rail urged train passengers to check their journey details before they travel because some major routes will also be closed due to engineering work.
The West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Milton Keynes will be shut for four days from Good Friday, with disruption also around Glasgow and Huddersfield. 
Storm Nelson’s appearance comes at one of the busiest weekends for travel. 
Tourist board VisitEngland said around 11 million people in the UK are planning an overnight Easter trip, generating an estimated £3.2 billion for the economy.
The most popular foreign destinations will include Turkey, Dubai and the Canary Islands, as well as trips to Dublin.
Chris Woodroofe, the managing director of Manchester Airport, 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.
But while the journey might be more treacherous than many would have hoped, the slow-moving traffic might be worth it as the weather is expected to clear up and lead to a fairly pleasant weekend.
Damp and blustery weather early on Good Friday is expected to give way to nicer weather over the rest of the weekend, with the Met Office expecting “a fairly decent” weekend.
The South West has been sodden throughout March, data shows, with the area soaked in twice the average rainfall for this time of year.
Gloucester, for example, has had more than twice the expected amount of rain, whereas Devon has seen 172 per cent of the March average, with 155mm (six inches) of precipitation so far this month.
Dan Stroud, a Met Office spokesman, said: “There are no weather warnings in place currently.”
“The weather is very showery and changeable, and some areas have seen a significant amount of rain this month and therefore are highly saturated and are in a state of heightened sensitivity.”
With semi-dry weather due over the next few days, any concerns of flooding should be mitigated as the sodden ground starts to dry out.
“We expect the wind to calm down and ease out over this afternoon, and for Saturday and Sunday to be semi-decent days. Lots of sunny spells and showers around, but these will be few and far between compared to today and yesterday,” said Mr Stroud.
“Saturday and Sunday of the bank Holiday weekend should be fairly decent,” he added. “But next week will be much more showery as an area of low pressure settles in again to the South and West.
“It will be very typical April showers weather.”for most as the winds become lighter.”