THE A30 has been rated as the best ‘A’ road across the country.

The Strategic Roads User Survey asked more than 9,000 road users about their last journey on a motorway or major ‘A’ road managed by National Highways.

The survey is the formal measure of user satisfaction for those driving on England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads; the roads managed by National Highways on behalf of the government. The survey helps National Highways develop initiatives and target investments to improve the driver experience.

Nationwide drivers rated the A30 as the best road in the country with the highest overall satisfaction at 85 per cent, as the South West retains its place as the best performing National Highways region in England with overall satisfaction at 75 per cent.

Louise Collins, Director at the independent watchdog Transport Focus said:  “Long stretches of roadworks, sometimes one after another and miles of cones have had a significant impact on road user satisfaction with England’s motorways, with a disappointing downward trend over the past couple of years.

“While roadworks are necessary to help maintain roads and drive improvements in user experience, the decrease in road user satisfaction reinforces the importance of National Highways learning the lessons of the smart motorway retrofit programme.

“We’ll be working with National Highways to help them use these survey findings as they plan future roadworks to make sure the impact on users is minimised.”

Alongside the A30, the M5 has continued praise for the South West’s roads, receiving an overall satisfaction rating of 71 per cent during the survey.

At the other end of the spectrum, drivers rated the M1 as England’s worst motorway. The M1’s place at the bottom of the league table comes after just 57 per cent of drivers said they were satisfied with their journey (down from 69 per cent in 2023/24). Motorists on the M1 have faced miles of roadworks and 50mph average speed limits as extra smart motorway emergency areas were built.

The survey also found that overall, 69 per cent of road users were satisfied with their journey, a drop from 71 per cent last year.

Management of roadworks continues to be one of the weaker performing areas with 46 per cent of those passing through roadworks on their journey satisfied, a drop from 49 per cent last year.

On top of this, 67 per cent of road users were satisfied with journey time, this remains the aspect that has the greatest impact on overall satisfaction. Journeys involving a smart motorway section continue to be rated lower for feeling safe (smart 75 per cent; not smart 83 per cent), and 68 per cent of drivers were satisfied with quality of the road surface with driver feedback citing the poor state of some roads and number of potholes as a key issue.

However, only 55 per cent of lorry drivers were satisfied with their journey making them the least satisfied of all road users.