M25 closure – live: Motorway reopens early ahead of Monday rush hour traffic

Historic work on the M25 in Surrey has finished hours ahead of schedule, allowing the road to reopen ahead of Monday rush hour traffic.

A five-mile stretch between junctions 10 and 11 was shut in both directions on 9pm on Friday and wasn’t expected to reopen until 6am on Monday.

However at 10:30pm on Sunday, National Highways revealed that the road was now open in both directions following the successful demolition of the Clearmount bridge.

“We’d like to say a massive ‘thank you’ to everyone for your patience during this weekend’s closure of the M25 J10-11,” it wrote on X.

“The closure was to demolish a bridge and install a huge gantry. The road’s now open again, eight hours ahead of schedule. Thank you again for bearing with us.”

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

A five-mile stretch between junctions 10 and 11 has been shut in both directions since 9pm on Friday and won’t reopen until 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 fresh plea for motorists only to travel on the M25 and diversion route if necessary.

Queues remain light on either side of the M25 closure, traffic cameras show.

A camera in the run-up to Junction 10 shows cars lined up tightly on the approach to the diversion, as they have been all morning.

While the two cameras in the approach to Junction 11 are out of action, there appears to be less than 2km of congestion in the lead-up to the diversion there.

The Independent’s travel correspondent Simon Calder has suggested opening up part of the closed-off stretches of the M25 to cyclists and pedestrains during the four 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 became estranged in the early 1980s. What came between them was an 80-yard-wide cutting carrying six lanes of traffic – later “densified” to eight lanes. Over a normal weekend, every minute an average of 100 cars, lorries and buses barrel through this deep divide.

Ten miles to the north: Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow; 20 miles southeast, the UK’s main holiday airport, Gatwick. And wherever you want to go in Britain, if you can’t access it from a motorway or A-road junction on the M25, it’s probably not worth going.

Since Margaret Thatcher opened the full circuit in 1986, the M25 has become one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure in Europe. For the first time, a daytime closure is taking place. A stretch of the motorway southwest of London is shut for the weekend, until 6am on Monday.

The aim: to improve Junction 10, where the M25 meets the A3 trunk road linking London with Guildford and Portsmouth (not to mention Chessington World of Adventures). The only way to do this is to close the entire five-mile stretch to Junction 11:

Traffic cameras appear to show little traffic on the approaches to Junctions 10 and 11, where the diversion is in force.

The Evening Standard had reported an hour ago that Inrix data suggested around 2km of traffic had been building to the north of the road closure at Junction 11, near Chertsey.

Our travel correspondent Simon Calder reports:

“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 first train of the morning from London on Saturday.

In this leafy corner of the home counties, all was “calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight” – until the first Bulgarian truck came thundering through. The lorry had been diverted from its planned trajectory by the unprecedented closure of a stretch of the M25 orbital motorway around London. And the A245 between Byfleet and West Byfleet has become part of a diversionary route – as well, I was to discover, as a temporary tourist attraction:

Amanda Boote, of Woking Borough Council, has told the PA news agency that traffic along the diversion route through the towns of Byfleet, West Byfleet, Woking and Ottershaw was not as bad as feared.

Congestion stretched for two miles on Saturday morning, according to National Highways South-East, and the estimated average journey time through the 11.5-mile diversion route was 25 minutes.

NHSE said on Saturday it had made good progress during the first night of work.

Drivers have been warned to expect delays to their journeys throughout the day.