Roadworks Lifted to Ease Bank Holiday Travel Chaos

Roadworks will be suspended over the Bank Holiday in an effort to lessen the impact of potential rail strikes.

Network Rail are currently set to stage a 24 hour strike on Bank Holiday Monday in protest over jobs and salaries. If an agreement can’t be reached, members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union will walk out at 5pm on Monday.

Those involved in the strike action will include signalers and maintenance staff, resulting in immense strain on the system.

To make sure people can still get away for the holiday, Highways England will remove or suspend almost 400 lane-miles of roadworks ahead of the spring Bank Holiday weekend.

The works will be removed at 6am Friday 22 May, and will only be reinstated the following Thursday.

Simon Sheldon-Wilson, director of customer operations at Highways England, said; "We are working with Network Rail and others to manage the impact of any industrial action on our customers.

"Motorways and major routes are likely to be even busier than usual if the planned industrial action goes ahead as travelers switch from rail to roads. We anticipate that customers may start noticing a difference in traffic during Friday afternoon and evening, when there could be extra journeys on our roads as the result of the planned rail action.

"During and immediately after the Bank Holiday we will be doing everything possible to manage traffic, such as removing temporary road works where practical. We'll have extra traffic officer patrols and recovery vehicles on standby, and we'll keep customers informed with real-time travel information online and via variable message signs.”

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