Manchester, West Mids and Yorkshire home to the nation’s busiest roads

For Road Safety Week, London lettings and estate agent,
Benham and Reeves, has revealed where across the nation we clock up the most miles on our roads each year.

Benham and Reeves analysed road usage based on the number of miles travelled by motor vehicles across the roads of each county in Britain on an annual basis*.

The research shows that last year British motorists clocked up a whopping 330.8bn miles on the roads.

Regionally, the South East saw the most miles travelled by motor vehicle, with a total of 52.8bn, followed by the East of England (37.9bn) and North West (35.9bn).

When breaking Britain down at a more granular level, the analysis by Benham and Reeves found that it’s Manchester where motorists clock the most miles across both Britain and England, totalling 11.4bn last year.

The West Midlands came second with 10.3bn miles covered across the county’s roads, with West Yorkshire (10.2bn), Essex (9.7bn) and Hampshire (9.5bn) also ranking within the top five.

Other areas to feature in the top 10 with respect to the counties with the busiest roads include Kent (9.4bn), Surrey (8.5bn), Hertfordshire (7.4bn), Lancashire (7.2bn) and South Yorkshire (6.7bn).

Outside of England, Glasgow ranked top in Scotland with 2.2bn miles each year, whilst Cardiff was home to the busiest roads in Wales with 2bn miles driven annually.

However, at the other end of the table, motorists in Clackmannanshire covered the fewest in Britain miles last year at 211m, along with Blaenau Gwent (256m).

Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr, commented

“Road safety has always been a strong consideration when it comes to house hunting and a busy road can be a put off due to a number of factors such as the noise, congestion and the potential danger it poses, particularly for children.

However, we’re also seeing homebuyers becoming more aware of the additional pitfalls of living on a busy road, a key one being pollution and the potential health problems it can cause in the long term.

Unfortunately, congested roads can be almost impossible to avoid for those looking to purchase in a major city, as population growth has put strain on the existing infrastructure in place.

We’ve seen measures such as low traffic neighbourhoods introduced to provide homeowners with some relief from increased traffic volumes, although these arguably make the issue worse for those outside of LTNs.
Of course, public transport remains a key draw for buyers and renters alike and is the preferable transport option of choice over good road links. In fact, 83% of renters we surveyed stated they wanted to be no more than ten minutes walk to an underground station.”