Easter travel – live: Bank holiday chaos as drivers face 20-mile queues on M4 and M5 and delays at Dover

WorldTravel
30 Mar 2024 • 12:07 AM MYT
The Independent
The Independent

The world’s most free-thinking newspaper

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The bank holiday travel chaos continues as drivers face up to 20-mile-long queues on major motorways as well as two-hour delays at the Port of Dover.

Around 2.6 million car journeys were expected to be made on Good Friday as the Easter getaway got underway, with holiday traffic causing “significant” congestion around the M25 and roads in the South West and South East by lunchtime. Queues of 15 to 20 miles were seen on the M4 and M5 interchange near Bristol, which is adding 45 minutes to journey times.

Meanwhile, the Port of Dover warned of two-hour delays on Friday afternoon. Huge queues could be seen building up there after ferry company DFDS reported on Thursday that its services were running with delays “due to strong winds in the Channel”.

And once again there are long waits for French passport control at the Kent port, where frontier formalities are carried out before boarding ferries to France. Since Brexit, officials are required to scrutinise and stamp UK passports.

It comes after plans were dashed as strong winds from the Spanish-named Storm Nelson hit the start of the wet long weekend, forcing the cancellation of trains, with almost 200 flood warnings and alerts remaining in place across the UK on Friday.