Coach Company offers sightseers a tour of the London M25 Orbital motorway

[richard]

For many drivers the London M25 motorway, with its gridlock & never-ending roadworks, is a road to be avoided at all cost.

But it seems that there are some who would happily pay to experience life in the slowest of lanes.

Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company is offering sightseers a tour of the London Orbital.

Tourists pay £15 for the journey on the 117 mile road as they learn a bit about the history of the motorway that has been dubbed the 'UK's largest car park'.

And there was such interest in the planned trip that the company has even added a second date - bringing the inaugural tour forward by seven months.

The bus company, which also runs day trips to tourist attractions such as Blenheim Palace, Beaulieu National Motor Museum, Bath and Bluewater shopping centre, included the M25 tour in its 2012 brochure earlier this month.

The planned date was 11 October but another date, 22 March, has now been added.

The trip departs from Worthing and picks up at Hove and Brighton before heading north on the A23 and M23 to join the M25 at the Merstham Interchange. The toss of a coin decides which direction the coach will then travel around the motorway.

According to its website, the tour will also include commentary on ‘interesting facts about the motorway’s evolution’.

Company spokesman Roger French said the motorway was ‘fascinating’.

'It goes through six home counties and you get a whole taste of the variety of London,’ he said.

'In Essex you come to Epping Forest and coming round by Heathrow you see the planes coming in to land.'

The first to book on the Brighton and Hove Bus tour was Nicholas Lambert, 55 as a retirement gift for his sister Ashley and her husband Paul.

Mr Lambert, told the Sun: ‘They have travelled round places like the Panama Canal and Red Sea so I thought it was time they travelled the real world.’

Mr French praised the M25's 'iconic' status, and said: 'As you go around past Clacket Lane Services, you get some lovely views from our coach that you just don't see from a car.'

He said the trip was already proving so popular that he needed to bring forward the date of the inaugural tour.

'It's selling well to our main market, women in their 60s, but we're also seeing a lot of interest from "geeky" males,' he said.

But it seems that the South Coast firm is not the only one to see the M25’s potential as a tourist attraction.

London-based firm Premium Tours also plans to launch its own tours of the M25 to coincide with the Olympics.

It is making the somewhat bold claim that the M25 is London’s answer to Route 66. Its slogan reads: ‘Forget Route 66, join us on a Premium Tour of the world’s greatest road: the M25.’

The trip will stop off at points of interest such as Waltham Abbey, Wisley Gardens and Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5, The Independent reports.

Premium Tours managing director, Neil Wootton, told the newspaper: 'We welcome competition from our friends in Brighton – it's the Olympics, after all.

'But don't be surprised if some of our coaches are creating traffic problems ahead of their buses, or blockading the M23.

'They won't be able to match our standards of comfort, nor our plan for an “Alternative Marathon”.

'This is understood to involve taking a vintage Routemaster bus around the M25 on 5 August, the day of the Olympic women's marathon.’

Speaking to the BBC, travel writer Simon Calder said: 'I think we have got a bit of an arms race developing here.

'I fear before long we are going to be nose to tail with coach trips on the M25.

'I do not buy Roger French's lyrical description of the beautiful English countryside seen from the M25.

'But it is a fantastic route to use to get to all kinds of marvellous places.'

Professor Edmund King, president of the AA, said: 'I'm not sure regular M25 users will welcome the addition of coach loads of tourists gawping at their misfortune.'


Source
By Charles Walford
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