M25 closure – stay: Bridge works ‘on schedule’ as Monday rush hour nears

Good progress has been made on the M25 in Surrey, the place engineers are bringing down a bridge throughout the motorway’s first ever deliberate daytime closure.

A five-mile stretch between junctions 10 and 11 has been shut in each instructions since 9pm on Friday and received’t reopen till 6am on Monday.

“We made good progress during the first night of the M25 J10 to J11 weekend closure,” NHSE posted on X at 9.05pm on Saturday.

“We will again work throughout the night to continue the demolition and gantry installations. There are minimal delays in the area at this time.”

National Highway has issued a contemporary plea for motorists solely to journey on the M25 and diversion route if mandatory.

Queues stay gentle on both aspect of the M25 closure, site visitors cameras present.

A digital camera within the run-up to Junction 10 reveals automobiles lined up tightly on the method to the diversion, as they’ve been all morning.

While the 2 cameras within the method to Junction 11 are out of motion, there seems to be lower than 2km of congestion within the lead-up to the diversion there.

The Independent’s journey correspondent Simon Calder has steered opening up a part of the closed-off stretches of the M25 to cyclists and pedestrains throughout the 4 upcoming shutdowns.

He writes: “I do not suggest that visitors should play among the bulldozers as the workers energetically pursue the Monday morning reopening deadline.

“But since several miles of motorway are entirely unoccupied, I commend properly organised walks and bike rides along the empty carriageways.

“Abu Dhabi opens its Formula One circuit regularly to pedestrians, runners and cyclists, and the M25 could provide the same temporary playground. To quote H G Wells once again, “a beautiful serenity” deserves to be appreciated.

Byfleet and West Byfleet turned estranged within the early Eighties. What got here between them was an 80-yard-wide slicing carrying six lanes of site visitors – later “densified” to eight lanes. Over a standard weekend, each minute a median of 100 automobiles, lorries and buses barrel via this deep divide.

Ten miles to the north: Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow; 20 miles southeast, the UK’s most important vacation airport, Gatwick. And wherever you need to go in Britain, should you can’t entry it from a motorway or A-road junction on the M25, it’s most likely not price going.

Since Margaret Thatcher opened the complete circuit in 1986, the M25 has grow to be one of the important items of infrastructure in Europe. For the primary time, a daytime closure is happening. A stretch of the motorway southwest of London is shut for the weekend, till 6am on Monday.

The intention: to enhance Junction 10, the place the M25 meets the A3 trunk street linking London with Guildford and Portsmouth (to not point out Chessington World of Adventures). The solely approach to do that is to shut all the five-mile stretch to Junction 11:

Traffic cameras seem to indicate little site visitors on the approaches to Junctions 10 and 11, the place the diversion is in power.

The Evening Standard had reported an hour in the past that Inrix knowledge steered round 2km of site visitors had been constructing to the north of the street closure at Junction 11, close to Chertsey.

Our journey correspondent Simon Calder studies:

“By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight.”

I recalled that line – from H G Wells’s War of the Worlds – at West Byfleet station in Surrey as I emerged from the primary practice of the morning from London on Saturday.

In this leafy nook of the house counties, all was “calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight” – till the primary Bulgarian truck got here thundering via. The lorry had been diverted from its deliberate trajectory by the unprecedented closure of a stretch of the M25 orbital motorway round London. And the A245 between Byfleet and West Byfleet has grow to be a part of a diversionary route – as effectively, I used to be to find, as a brief vacationer attraction:

Amanda Boote, of Woking Borough Council, has informed the PA information company that site visitors alongside the diversion route via the cities of Byfleet, West Byfleet, Woking and Ottershaw was not as unhealthy as feared.

Congestion stretched for 2 miles on Saturday morning, in response to National Highways South-East, and the estimated common journey time via the 11.5-mile diversion route was 25 minutes.

NHSE stated on Saturday it had made good progress throughout the first night time of labor.

Drivers have been warned to count on delays to their journeys all through the day.

Good progress has been made on the M25 in Surrey, the place engineers are bringing down a bridge throughout the motorway’s first ever deliberate daytime closure.

A five-mile stretch between junctions 10 and 11 has been shut in each instructions since 9pm on Friday and received’t reopen till 6am on Monday.

“We made good progress during the first night of the M25 J10 to J11 weekend closure,” NHSE posted on X at 9.05pm on Saturday.

“We will again work throughout the night to continue the demolition and gantry installations. There are minimal delays in the area at this time.”