On one of the busiest Fridays of the year for holiday makers, the M1 motorway has been closed between J1 and J4 following a fire and will remain so most of the day.
The fire-brigade were called to a fire in a scrapyard which is situated under a motorway bridge at around 4am, but when gas canisters were found in the yard the motorway had to be closed as a safety precaution.
The Highways Agency are currently assessing any damage to the bridge as a result of the fire which is still believed to be on-going, but the result is that one of the busiest sections of the M1 will likely be shut until this evening at the earliest.
Huge numbers of holiday makers are expected to take advantage of the double bank holidays in the following weeks, meaning taking just 7 working days holiday can result in a 17 day break with the Easter double bank holiday, plus royal wedding and the May day bank holiday.
To compound this, there will also be an expected half a million people going to watch the London Marathon on Sunday and around 200,000 football fans going to watch the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.
You can keep up to date on the problems with the Traffic England web site – South East England.
