"David F" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi Folks - hopefully someone can help me. I'm travelling to Gatwick
Airport on Thursday morning. My flight leaves at 12.30 and am supposed
to be there about 2.5 hours before departure. So I need to be walking
into the terminal at about 10am.

I don't really fancy taking the Gatwick Express and would prefer to
drive, likely to have lots of bags on the return is the primary
reason. I suppose I should leave 30 minutes to park, and get form the
long-stay car park to the terminal - so arriving at the car park for
9.30.

I live in Islington, and although all the journey planners seem to
think the best journey is an hour and a quarter through the City,
Brixton, Purley etc. From experience, this is gernerally a bad idea -
especially at the time I am travelling - so I thought the A13 out to
the M25, round a bit then on to the M23 would be much faster.

The M25 clockwise from 4-6 tends to be a bit grim in the morning rush hour.

BUT - since I never drive to work, and don't know those roads very
well I've no idea how long this journey could take. Would I need to
leave at 7am? Earlier?

If you could get yourself onto the A3 or M3 out to the M25, that might be a
bit better
Also, the M23 southbound gets rather slow with traffic queueing to get off
at Gatwick. Probably OK by 9am though.


Any help you can give would be much appreciated!
Thanks,

The Highways Agency web site shows predicted traffic flows on the motorways
at certain times of day:
http://www.highways.gov.uk/traffic/forecast.aspx