London to Leeds: the M1 the whole way, or the A1 if it is having a bad day

The M1 and the A1 run roughly parallel up the eastern half of England, about thirty miles apart, and they meet the same destinations from different sides. For Leeds the M1 is shorter and normally quicker; for York, Wetherby or anywhere on the northern side, the A1 wins.

Having both matters on the days when one of them fails. An incident on the M1 near Sheffield with no junction to escape at is a genuinely expensive hour, and the decision to go east is made around Northampton, before it is too late to make it.

Leeds is the city, but a great deal of the work goes past it. Harrogate is fifteen miles north, Ilkley twenty north-west, Skipton is the gateway to the Dales, and York sits twenty-five miles east on the A64.

None of those are far from Leeds and all of them are awkward from Leeds station. A car that starts in London and finishes at a door in Wharfedale removes a change, a taxi and a good deal of standing on a platform with luggage.

The M1 climbs as it crosses South Yorkshire and the Pennine edge is close enough to matter. It is genuinely common to leave London in sun and reach Sheffield in low cloud, and in winter this is the section where snow appears first.

It is not dramatic and it does not usually cost much time, but it changes how the last hour is driven. We would rather set out earlier in winter than push a schedule across that stretch in poor visibility.

The M621 delivers you to a ring road that circles the city centre, some of it in a cutting and some of it underground. It moves reasonably well and it is easy to miss an exit, after which the loop takes several minutes to come round again.

For a hotel or an office in the middle, the approach matters more than the route north did. We plan the last mile rather than trusting it to a screen, which is a small thing that stops a four-hour journey ending in a lap of the ring road.

Eight hours of driving plus a meeting is a long day, and Leeds is right at the edge of what a same-day road return should be asked to cover. It is possible and we do it, and for a single meeting it is usually the wrong choice.

Where a passenger has three appointments across West Yorkshire, the car is clearly right and the day makes sense. Where there is one meeting in the city centre, the train there and a car back is often the arrangement we would suggest instead.