Duxford "Battle of Britain" air display

Don't know if this blog has any readers in the East of England area but given my past political career before moving to Cumbria it's not impossible, so here is a travel tip.

If you are planning to go to the second day of the "Battle of Britain" air display at the Imperial War Museum's Duxford site tomorrow, I strongly recommend that you make a very early start indeed.

If you are not going to the air display, but might otherwise be travelling on the roads anywhere remotely near Duxford, and especially on the M11, A11, or A505, FIND ANOTHER ROUTE as far away from Duxford as you can manage if you can possibly do so.

A huge number of people attended today - or tried to - completely filling all the approved car parks at the venue and causing almost total gridlock on roads around the area. We were told on the radio that the event was full and the organisers had closed the gates, though when we passed the entrance there were still vehicles queuing to get in. The impact on the A505 was one of the worst transport problems I have ever experienced - significantly worse than the average effect on British roads of a foot of snow, or a bad set of M1 or M6 roadworks.

From what we saw of the air display from nearby roads during the three hours we were stuck in traffic while attempting to get through the area on the way home from holiday, it was quite magnificent. But if we had realised how completely the local transport infrastructure would fail to cope with this event, we would have chosen a different way home.

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