Drivers told ‘decorate the bathroom or something’ during M25 closure | UK News

If you’re thinking of driving anywhere in south west London or the surrounding counties this weekend: don’t.

That’s the basic summary of the advice from the National Highways agency which has offered official advice for people to ‘decorate the bathroom or something’ instead.

That’s because part of the M25 motorway is set to close for a full weekend for the first time ever.

A five-mile stretch of the road between junctions 10 and 11 in Surrey will be closed in both directions from 9pm on Friday until 6am on Monday.

The closure will allow engineers to demolish a bridge and install a new overhead gantry as part of a £317 million project to upgrade junction 10, with four more closures expected later this year.

Jonathan Wade, project leader at National Highways, said the work is necessary because the M25-A3 intersection ‘simply cannot handle the volume of traffic that it’s currently being asked to handle’.

‘Please, if you can either avoid traveling completely, find something to do at home – decorate the bathroom or something, or play in the garden,’ he told The Independent’s travel podcast.

‘If you must go, travel by train, walk, use a bicycle. I don’t mind really what you do.

‘Avoid driving anywhere around those diversionary routes around Painshill, Byfleet, West Byfleet on the eastern side of Woking. It will be in your interests.’

The M25 normally carries between 4,000 and 6,000 vehicles in each direction per hour from 10am to 9pm at weekends between junctions 9 and 11.

Four more daytime closures of the motorway will take place up to September.

Drivers are being urged to ignore satnavs and only follow official diversion routes to prevent causing gridlock during the ‘unprecedented’ closure.

National Highways has said how well the area copes with the shutdown will partly depend on whether drivers stick to official diversions.

The Government-owned company estimates that drivers who follow signs for diversion routes on A-roads will have an hour added to their usual journey times.

It is concerned that some may try to find alternative routes via minor roads.

Senior project manager Daniel Kittredge added: ‘If people move away from the diversion routes that we prescribe, it creates additional issues in different parts of the road network.

‘The majority of the time that will be local roads, so that really impacts residents in those particular areas.’

He continued: ‘That’s why we’re trying to encourage people not to follow the satnav.

‘Stick on the prescribed diversion route. It’s going to be more suitable for your journey.’

Motorists are advised to detour more than 10 miles around northern Surrey, via Cobham, Byfleet, West Byfleet and Sheerwater before rejoining the motorway at Chertsey.

Steve Gooding, director of motoring research charity the RAC Foundation, said: ‘We must hope National Highways has overstated its dire predictions of sat navs adding to the traffic chaos by taking drivers off the official diversion route, because the temptation to try to skip the queues will be intense, and the impact on actual journey times uncertain.

‘Whilst the modeling suggests an hour might add to people’s travel time, that will feel optimistic to anyone used to the frustrations of driving round the M25 on days even without major construction works under way.’

Councilors whose wards are on the diversion route expressed concerns about what will happen.

Malcolm Cressey, of Runnymede Borough Council, said: ‘I think it’s going to be a difficult period but we have to sort out those bridges.

‘I think it’s going to be very disruptive. I would certainly urge anybody to try and avoid the area. It could end up with all kinds of gridlocks in our area.’

Tahir Aziz, of Woking Borough Council, said: ‘We’ve never experienced something like this before. It will have a significant impact in this area.

‘It will cause huge disruption and delays, and a lot of traffic jams.’

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