Where to expect Easter holiday travel chaos with Simon Calder Credit: The Independent
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00:00The schools, many of them, are breaking up on Friday the 4th of April
00:04and won't go back until Tuesday the 22nd,
00:08which gives almost three weeks of possible disruption.
00:12On the roads, the worst problems are probably going to be on Friday the 4th
00:17and Saturday the 5th of April, as everyone makes the great getaway.
00:22I can predict that you will have problems on the M25
00:26and that's going to be particularly difficult on the western section
00:30around Heathrow, the M40 and the M4,
00:34right around to the Gatwick turn off, the M23,
00:37and on the eastern section around the Dartford Crossing.
00:41Going west from London, then the A303 towards Devon and Cornwall
00:47is going to be very busy going through Wiltshire,
00:51as is the M5 coming south from Birmingham to Bristol and to Exeter.
00:57You might be thinking, oh we'll forget the car, we'll go by train.
01:01Unfortunately, the west coast with the West Midlands,
01:05North West England, North Wales and Southern Scotland
01:08is going to be in all kinds of disarray over the Easter weekend
01:13and that is for planned network rail engineering work.
01:17In particular, London Euston is closed all the way through
01:22from Easter Saturday to Easter Monday.
01:27Looking at the lines from Victoria in London going southeast to Kent,
01:33that's completely closed and in particular you're going to have to switch
01:38possibly to Cannon Street or London Bridge
01:42and unfortunately there's a couple of lovely lines connecting resorts,
01:46Canterbury to Ramsgate via Margate and Hastings to Eastbourne via Bexhill
01:53which are going to be closed as well for engineering work.
01:57Looking at the skies, I can't tell you exactly when the worst problems are going to be
02:02but I can tell you that you can expect long delays.
02:06The airlines say that this is going to be the worst summer
02:10and the summer season's just begun for delays due to air traffic control staff shortage
02:15since the start of this century.
02:19Good luck everybody!