The 10 Worst Roads In Britain Announced – Brian Clough Would Have Sorted It

Brian Clough Way in Nottingham the worst road in Britain. The 10 worst roads in Britain revealed.

Over 60% of all journeys along Brian Clough Way in Nottingham were delayed according to Department Of Transport statistics published on 13th March.

The 10 Worst Roads in Britain*

1.    A52 Brian Clough Way, Nottingham
2.    A61 from Barnsley to the M1
3.    A404 from Maidenhead to M4
4.    A63 South of Hull
5.    A27 Brighton
6.    A33 Basingstoke
7.    A24 Worthing
8.    A500 Newcastle Under Lyme
9.    A23 Redhill
10.  A259 Bexhill

(*Data is combined from a number of data points and is subject to interpretation - the Government do not use Google Earth! Roads near Brighton particularly the A27, where the Highway Agency is responsible, are mentioned in several data points. )

Motorist Misery - Traffic Jams

Motorist’s ultimate misery, apart from breakdown, comes in the form of traffic delays with hours wasted every day caused by overcrowding and poor road planning.

A 60% Chance of A Delay

The worst road in Britain, according to the Department of Transport, is Brian Clough Way in Nottingham where less than 40% of drivers are likely to travel the link road to the M1 on time.

'Rome wasn't built in a day. But I wasn't on that particular job.' Brian Clough

Brian Clough once said, 'Rome wasn't built in a day. But I wasn't on that particular job.' The people of Nottingham still hold the charismatic and rambunctious manager in high esteem and one local resident motorists said, “It’s a shame Cloughy wasn’t here to sort this mess, he wouldn’t have let the people of Nottingham sit in traffic and put up with it – he would have taken his name off the road.”

Over 2000 Roads Timed

The Department of Transport state that their ‘on-time’ car figures are experimental and are being tested but the data goes back to March 2011. Over 2000 stretches of road have been regularly monitored and the DoT is looking for users of the data to give feedback to improve their reliability and use.

Problems On The South Coast

The worst ten roads in Britain have also revealed all is not well in the prosperous South with traffic nightmares near Brighton, Worthing and Bexhill clogging up the roads on a daily basis.

And The Best Road Is....

The best roads are also revealed with A11 between A1101 and A14 East Anglia achieving 100% on time conditions in January 2014. However, even on this small quiet stretch of road, road works have been announced and local drivers will face delays.


*Important Notes

The Government use exact co-ordinates called ‘Easting’ and ‘Northing’.  These are listed against codes called ‘HATRIS’  in the tables supplied by DoT (eg  AL3155).  They do not use Google Maps.

We therefore reverted to ‘Easting’ and ‘Northing’ references and found the exact locations as the DoT use them.

Given the precise nature of the references, one road can appear twice.  It appears twice as each carriage way is measured independently.  For example, a road to the motorway can be slower than the road from it.

The analysis carried out combined a number of lines of the data - which is still a little experimental and prone to error.  This allowed us to take out the duplicates (two references for the same stretch of road) but utilise the data. 

The combination of this allowed us to name roads in general and towns in general, this has been subject to interpretation.