Record petrol prices as Britain sets off on Easter getaway

Those staying at home were having to contend with congested roads and some disrupted rail services but were being promised warm sunshine over the holiday period.

Temperatures in London and south east England are likely to reach as high as 24C (75F) on Good Friday, with the weather nationwide due to stay warm and sunny over the Easter weekend.

But Britons travelling to European hotspots were likely to see comparatively low temperatures, with Malaga in southern Spain and the Greek Island of Corfu only likely to reach around 17C (63F) tomorrow and Barcelona only getting up to 16C (61F).

Record petrol and diesel prices will mean drivers paying an extra £2 for every 100 miles travelled this holiday weekend compared with Easter last year, with drivers in Yorkshire and Humberside getting the best deals at the pumps, the AA said.

Average UK pump prices are now at 135.79p a litre for petrol and 141.99p for diesel.

Petrol has risen 2.91p a litre since mid-March 2011, with diesel up 3.01p, while petrol has gone up 14.92p a litre since last Easter and diesel has risen 20.09p.

The AA added that compared with a year ago, a typical 50-litre tank refill now costs £7.46 more for petrol and £10.05 more for diesel. A two-car family is spending £31.68 a month more on petrol.

Roads are expected to be busy over the weekend, although there was better news for drivers when the Highways Agency announced that from this morning the fire-hit section of the M1 between junctions one and four just north of London was fully open again.

The agency has suspended roadworks at a number of sites on England’s motorways and major roads, but restrictions are still in place at some sites, including some on the M1 and M25.

Network Rail said there would be some engineering work on the railways over Easter but that 18% more trains were running this holiday compared with last Easter.

Disrupted services due to engineering include those using the West Coast line in north west England, services in and out of London’s Liverpool Street station and trains on the Great Western line.

Travellers in Scotland were hit early today by a track-side fire which closed the railway line between Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as the line between Falkirk Grahamston and Cumbernauld.

The late Easter and the royal wedding have resulted in employees having to take only three days off next week to get an 11-day break, starting tomorrow and returning to work on Tuesday May 3.

Travel organisation Abta said the most popular destination for those travelling abroad this Easter was Spain, with the top city destinations being Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome and New York.

Visa Europe said that the “Wills and Kate effect” had caused a 104% year-on-year rise in flight bookings heading out of the UK in the two days preceding the royal wedding, while in-bound trips to the UK have increased 244%.

The company said it had already processed more than 26,000 flight bookings for Britons planning to fly on April 27 and 28, with the most popular destinations being Amsterdam, Malaga, Dublin and the Spanish area of Alicante.

VisitEngland said that 26% of UK adults were planning to take a trip involving at least one overnight stay in the UK over the double bank holiday period.

It added that those likely to make the most overnight-stay trips were from Greater London and north west England.

Travel company Tui, the parent of holiday firms Thomson and First Choice, said its Easter sales were 22% up on last year, while budget airline Ryanair reported its Easter bookings were 10% up on last year. Its top destinations were the Canary Islands, Greece, France, Portugal and Spain.

National Express said its busiest day for coach travel over the period of the two bank holidays was Easter Monday.

On the day of the royal wedding, the company is providing London-bound coaches from 67 towns and cities, with Southampton, Stansted Airport in Essex, and Bournemouth the most-popular starting points for journeys.

Accidents and a build-up of traffic led to congestion on a number of main roads today.

Among jammed-up routes in early afternoon were the A38 near Derby, the M25 between junctions two and three south of Dartford in Kent, the A2 in Kent, the A27 near Chichester in West Sussex, and on the A1 (M) near Durham.

On the railways, a signalling problem in the Retford area of Nottinghamshire led to delays to East Coast services, while another signalling problem at Diss in Norfolk caused delays to Norwich-Ipswich services run by National Express East Anglia.

British Airways said it would be carrying more than 250,000 people into London next week ahead of the royal wedding.

Americans are proving to be the keenest to come to join in wedding celebrations, with BA’s top six busiest routes into London being New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco.

After Edinburgh and Glasgow, the next most popular inbound flights are from Paris, Nice, Munich and Berlin.