Millions head off for Easter break

Millions of Britons are heading off on holiday to celebrate the Easter break.

More than two million British holidaymakers are heading abroad for the break, while an estimated 18 million people will be travelling on Britain's roads.

The most popular foreign holiday destinations for British holidaymakers are Spain and its islands, although other destinations such as Tunisia, Egypt, Paris, Rome and Venice are also popular.

At home, the Highways Agency confirmed earlier this week that roadworks would be suspended at 27 major locations across England over Easter in order to keep the traffic moving over the holidays.

According to reports, there were already long queues on motorways heading north and south out of London on Thursday.

Roads in the Midlands, leading to the West Country and the Lake District were reported to be busy on Friday, while a traffic jam was also reported on the M1, heading north through Hertfordshire, where roadworks remained in place.

Motorists seeing to traffic and travel information over the holidays can access new information points at 24 Welcome Break service stations across England, as well as through the Agency's real-time traffic website, Traffic England and internet radio. All these are fed through in real time from the Agency's high-tech 24-hour National Traffic Control Centre in Birmingham.

The weather forecast indicates that the weather is likely to be better towards the end of the Easter break. The Met Office said that a west to northwesterly airflow is expected to bring changeable weather for several days. Sunny intervals and showers are expected and some of these will be heavy, with more prolonged rain expected to affect parts of the south and east on Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday.

After Easter, the Met Office said that there were indications that showers will become more confined to the north and west with southern and eastern areas becoming drier and warmer.

This drier and warmer weather is then expected to extend northwards with perhaps some very warm weather possible for southeast England especially.

However, the Met Office also warned that scattered thundery showers might develop, along with an increasing risk of coastal fog.

(KMcA)