'Good progress' on M25 as Monday rush hour looms

"Good progress" is being made on the M25 in Surrey as staff work around the clock to reopen the motorway for Monday rush hour.

The "unprecedented" daytime closure of one of the country's busiest stretches came into force at 21:00 GMT on Friday.

A diversion is in place around five miles of closed lanes, which are due to reopen at 06:00 on Monday.

National Highways said "good progress" had been made demolishing a bridge and installing a new gantry.

The closure is along both carriageways between junctions 10 and 11, with people told to only use the M25 if "absolutely necessary".

Traffic was beginning to build on Sunday morning in the approach to the closure.

While along the diversion route, the A245 was partially blocked in both directions due to an accident.

Travellers affected may include people going to Gatwick and Heathrow Airports and the Channel ports.

On Sunday, there were delays and cancellations of up to 15 minutes on Heathrow Express trains out of London, due to engineering works not finishing on time.

On Saturday, there were two-mile queues of traffic leading up to the closed section and Surrey Highways reported delays on the diversion route between Byfleet and Painshill.

It is the first time there has been a scheduled daytime closure of all lanes on the M25 since it opened in 1986.

National Highways said the carriageway between junctions nine and 11 typically carried between 4,000 and 6,000 vehicles per hour in each direction during peak times at the weekend.

Junction 10 is the busiest section of the M25 with more than 300,000 vehicles passing through each day.

As such, any overrun of the work could cause huge disruption on Monday.

The closure will be the first of five between now and September as part of a £317m upgrade, with the next due in April.

National Highways previously said it was not yet at a stage where it could release exact dates about the other closures.

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