'CARMAGEDDON'
Exact date M25 to close with warning over travel time DOUBLING as drivers sent on 20-mile detour – will you be affected?
Experts give advice on how to plan your route and avoid delays
COMMUTERS are being warned travel time could DOUBLE as they're sent on a 20-mile detour thanks to M25 closures.
The huge stretch of major motorway is set to shutdown in just weeks - causing mayhem for motorists up and down the country.
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A seven-mile section between junctions nine and 10, in Surrey, will be inaccessible in both directions for three days.
Closures are in place from 9pm on Friday, May 10, until 6am on Monday, May 13.
Lengthy diversions will be implemented - forcing drivers to use the A3 and A243 via Epsom, Surbiton and Cobham.
It will come just two months after the same stretch was closed off for works causing motorway gridlock for miles.
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Diversion routes quickly became backlogged in March when the major ring road section approaching junction 10 was shut down for the first time.
There were several kilometers of traffic piling up towards and beyond Hatchford while queues forming along the main diversion route through Byfleet, West Byfleet, Woking and Ottershaw.
National Highways senior project manager Jonathan Wade reassured drivers that May's closure will be "far from a repeat of the previous closure".
Mr Wade said: "Drivers listened to our advice last time which reduced motorway traffic levels by over two-thirds and meant delays were limited.
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"Our advice again is please only travel if absolutely necessary and make sure you give yourself extra time if you do choose to use the M25."
The second shutdown is for the installation of a new bridge.
It will have 68 beams, each weighing 16 tonnes, and another four beams weighing 40 tonnes.
Previous work has seen the old bridge demolished in a bid to make way for a new gantry as part of a £317million project.
It is said to make entering and exiting the M25 at J10 "easier and safer" by improving traffic flow with extra lanes.
The project is due to be completed in summer 2025.
‘It’s a nightmare – we can’t even go to get milk’
By JONATHAN ROSE
VILLAGERS have slammed the first planned daytime closure of the M25 as a "nightmare".
The five-mile stretch of motorway between junctions 10 and 11 was closed in both directions last month.
Concerns have been raised that thousands of drivers will be stuck in gridlocked traffic over the weekend during the unprecedented closure.
At the same time, Tom Cruise is planning to use helicopters to fly cast and crew over the closed M25 in a daring bid to film Mission Impossible 8.
It was the first planned daytime closure of the motorway - which encircles London - since it opened in 1986.
An 11.5-mile diversion route has been created to direct motorway traffic along A roads.
Daryl Jordan, of Woking Borough Council, said the Byfleet Road, which is close to junction 10, had been "chock-a-block".
He said residents will be "affected massively".
"It is pulling people apart," the councillor said.
"I mean, you know, when you work full-time and then you're going to get home tonight from work thinking 'I must fill the fridge up' and you can't even get into your own village.
"It's going to be a nightmare. Just going down the road to get milk is going to be a problem tomorrow or picking up your dry cleaning."
Travellers were previously told to NOT use their satnavs - ignoring warnings of quicker routes - and to follow signs instead.
Mr Wade said satnavs would take them on to smaller roads, making life a misery for people living in the area.
Those living on the diversion route have already been up in arms at the congestion they're forced to endure.
Daryl Jordan, of Woking Borough Council, said the Byfleet Road, which is close to junction 10, had been "chock-a-block" last time.
He said residents will continue to be "affected massively", adding: "It is pulling people apart.
"I mean, you know, when you work full-time and then you're going to get home tonight from work thinking 'I must fill the fridge up' and you can't even get into your own village.
"It's going to be a nightmare. Just going down the road to get milk is going to be a problem tomorrow or picking up your dry cleaning."
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Steve Gooding, director of motoring research charity the RAC Foundation, said: "We must hope National Highways has overstated its dire predictions of satnavs 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 modelling suggests around an hour might be added 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."
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