The length of Ringway 3 between the A1 at South Mimms and the A10 near Waltham Cross is of particular interest because it had been consistently viewed, since the 1950s, as the most urgently needed section of what was then the “D” Ring, and this head start resulted in the length between A1 and A111 becoming one of the first sections of the modern M25 to open to traffic.

Most of the other sections of M25 were settled as motorway projects at an early stage, but being the first section of the “D” Ring to be progressed, then one of the first sections of Ringway 3 to be developed, and then one of the first sections of M25 to open, it was subject to a great deal more planning, development and negotiation in order to settle its form and design – decisions that would go on to influence the whole of the ring it was supposed to form, and the whole of the ring it eventually joined.

Origins in the “D” Ring

Like the rest of Ringway 3, the section between A1 and A10 has its origins in Abercrombie’s “D” Ring Road, which would have been an Arterial road forming a full circle around London, loosely positioned at what were then the fringes of the urban area.

In this area, the route Abercrombie selected was actually some way north of the urban fringe in open countryside. This appears to be partly in order to find a suitable place to route a new major road, and partly because the edges of the urban area are at quite variable distances from the centre of London and so the “D” Ring had a natural tendency to travel in and out of the suburbs on its journey.

Abercrombie’s ambitions for entirely new roads within and around London rarely survived long once transplanted out of his beautifully illustrated books and in to the political realities of the capital, but the “D” Ring’s fate was better than most. While many projects were scaled back to vague promises to upgrade existing streets, or abandoned altogether, the “D” Ring was accepted, at least in part.

By the 1950s the Ministry of Transport had decided to build its western and northern sections as a new Trunk Road project, linking the Great Chertsey Road (now A316 and M3) to the A11. The remainder – just over half – was, however, abandoned¹.

Prioritisation of A1-A10 length

While it was the Ministry’s intention to eventually build a new ring road all the way from Sunbury to Epping Forest, there was a definite consensus that the length connecting the A1 to the A10 was the most urgently required and it would be provided first. There were three reasons for this².

The first reason was that the first length of the M1 was in planning (though it didn’t yet hold that number). At its London end, it would divide into two branches. One would go south to Berrygrove, east of Watford, where the motorway would join the A41 North Western Avenue, an inter-war Arterial Road then only about 30 years old which provided a suitable route onward to North West and Central London.

The other branch, numbered M10 on opening, would travel south east around St Albans to finish at Park Street on the A414 North Orbital Road. Given that both Berrygrove and Park Street were to the north west of London, a route was wanted to link the M10 with North East London and, possibly more importantly, the East End’s docks. From Park Street traffic could head east on the North Orbital and then A6 to reach the A1 at South Mimms, but there was no good eastward road beyond there. The “D” Ring was, therefore, urgently required to make an onward connection to the A10.

The second reason was to relieve a range of B-roads across this part of Middlesex. Even without the M1’s existence, several of the main roads north and north-west from London arrived in the area of St Albans, and large volumes of heavy traffic were using rat runs to get across to roads like the A10. The “D” Ring would provide a safe route for these vehicles to use.

The third reason was that, over time, the Ministry wanted to develop new routes for lorry traffic between London’s northern radials and its docks. This involved the motorway that eventually became the M11, which was then envisaged to enter London via the Lea Valley, intersecting the “D” Ring at Waltham Abbey. The “D” Ring would therefore provide an essential part of the eventual network of roads that would get docks traffic off London streets.

Development as a Trunk Road project

In early 1958 the A1-A10 length of the “D” Ring began to gather pace as a road scheme. A memorandum from February of that year suggested that, if funding levels remained stable, it was expected to be authorised for construction in the 1962-63 financial year, which would see it open around 1965³. Needless to say, the timetable would slip considerably from that early start date.

Naming difficulty

By January 1959, discussion had moved on to the requirement for the project to have a name. The Ministry’s standard practice at this time was for each Trunk Road to be numbered, with new numbers added sequentially as required. Since the “D” Ring was an entirely new road it was given the number TR115. Each would also be given a name, which was ordinarily a description of the places it linked – the “London-Inverness Trunk Road”, for example. But the need to provide a name for a route that formed an arc, rather than a simple line between two end points, seemed to present great and unprecedented difficulty.

The initial legal paperwork for the A1-A10 length was prepared under the name “South Mimms to Great Cambridge Road, Enfield, Trunk Road”, which described only the limits of the first section. This was considered unsatisfactory and a name was needed that would embrace the whole of the eventual route. On 20 January 1959, civil servant RR Franklin suggested “Northern Ring Road”, which he said would fit with the existing North Circular Road and North Orbital Road⁴.

An undated memorandum, filed in the days that followed, states with some authority:

“Please note that the title of this road has now been settled as “The London Outer Ring Road”.

Undated memorandum, signature indecipherable, filed between 20 and 23 January 1959⁵

The definitive nature of that statement turned out to be optimistic. By 23 January more names were on the table, with options now including “The Greater London North(ern) Ring Road”, “The Sunbury-Ruislip-Waltham Abbey Trunk Road” and “The Sunbury-South Mimms-Epping Forest Trunk Road”⁶. The debate appears to have rumbled on, in fact, for several months: by mid-March more names were being suggested, including the anodyne – “The North Ring Road”, “Outer Ring Road”, “Northern Approach Ring Road” – and the esoteric – “Second Lateral”, “The North Inner Radial Road”⁷.

The eventual selection, visible on paperwork from 1959 onwards, is rather less imaginative: “Sunbury-Harrow-South Mimms-Waltham Abbey (London D. Ring)”.

Representations over route choice

Through the late 1950s and early 1960s the project attracted representations from some interested parties – it was too early in the UK’s roadbuilding boom to call them protests yet, but they were without doubt somewhat critical.

The earliest came from the Potters Bar Society, a neighbourhood organisation that took a close interest in all developments happening in their vicinity. Typical of their approach was a response they made to a planning application for two petrol stations to be built on the A6 South Mimms Bypass. They produced a five page report, plus illustrated cover sheet, titled “Report dealing with an application for planning consent for a petrol filling station on the South Mimms Bypass”, which set out their strongly worded opposition⁸.

Around 1961 the Potters Bar Society decided to involve themselves in the “D” Ring project, and they – along with a number of their members, writing separately – generated a large volume of correspondence with the Ministry of Transport. The answer to all of their enquiries, which came in multiple forms from a whole range of civil servants, was that no route had been chosen yet so there was little to discuss. By 1968 their focus had shifted, and they produced an extensive report into the “D” Ring project which was mainly focussed on the virtues of not chopping down trees that screened houses from the new road⁹.

At about the same time the British Road Federation submitted their own alternative proposal for a direct route from South Mimms to the North Circular, which they thought should be built as a motorway¹⁰. They argued that the Ministry’s proposed eventual route from M1 to the docks, via the “D” Ring and M11, would be too long and would therefore be wasteful in extra mileage and fail to capture enough of the dock traffic.

The Ministry considered their suggestion, and gave it the benefit of some internal discussion, but the idea was ultimately dismissed because of the difficulty of building such a thing through North London, where no suitable corridor for a new road appeared to exist, and the lack of information at that time about how much heavy commercial traffic might divert and how much would refuse to use the “D” Ring on the basis of the four extra miles’ travel it would incur.

Design work

The route of Abercrombie’s “D” Ring Road had been protected in the County Development Plans of the various authorities through which it passed; the A1-A10 length was therefore in the care of Middlesex County Council. When Middlesex was abolished in 1965, the new Greater London Council took over the duty of planning authority, and also became the Ministry’s agent for the trunk road scheme. As such they were not just responsible for safeguarding its line and providing planning approval, but also for managing and overseeing its construction¹¹.

When the GLC took over responsibility the demand for the road – and the standard to which it would be built – were far from settled. There is evidence of discussion taking place as late as August 1965 about the relative costs and merits of building it as single carriageway road with space for later dualling¹².

By 1966 that question had seemingly been settled and detailed planning was under way to build a dual carriageway. Representatives from the GLC and MOT were holding regular meetings to discuss the project’s progress. One such meeting, in June 1967, included questions from the GLC about whether the design should be for a dual three-lane motorway rather than the Ministry’s proposal for dual two-lane with space for later widening.

By early 1968, the initial plan for a new road between A1 and A10 had been pared back to a first phase that would connect only A1 to A111¹³.

Debate over motorway status

Another planning meeting, held in July 1967, was typical of the gulf that existed between a Council that was keen to develop a dense motorway network and a Ministry that was keen to prepare an affordable project that the Treasury would approve¹⁴.

In the meeting, HS Andrew from the GLC asked whether the road would be a Trunk Road (meaning an all-purpose A-road) or a motorway. MK Morris, on behalf of the MOT, stated that “it was programmed as a trunk road project and work to date including consultations with Local Authorities had proceeded on that basis and on the assumption that the Order would be under Section 7.”¹⁵

Andrew then pressed the point – arguing that statutory undertakers could not be prevented from placing services under a Trunk Route, and pedestrians would have to be accommodated. Hertfordshire County Council’s JV Leigh, also present, agreed, and asked whether a Trunk Road could be safeguarded from underground services. To this there was no clear answer (though subsequent experience elsewhere suggests that it is indeed possible to build an all-purpose road that prohibits underground services and pedestrians).

Perhaps attempting to mollify the demands for a motorway, Morris then explained that the Ministry’s design was for dual 24ft carriageways, built to motorway specification, and including provision of a wide central reservation for a future third lane to be added – unchanged since the previous month’s gathering. But this also caused disagreement, since another GLC representative, AS Paterson, said that the estimate the GLC had been asked to prepare for the scheme was based on a dual three-lane design.

Morris, perhaps keen to end the meeting, promised to look into this and the motorway question, but warned that applying motorway regulations at this stage would only delay the scheme.

Discussions of this kind evidently continued to be held, with the GLC applying pressure for the project to be a motorway rather than an A-road, enabling them to incorporate it into Ringway 3, which they envisaged as the outermost of three ring motorways around London.

By May 1968 – almost two full years later – there was movement. At another planning meeting, this time including not just the GLC and Hertfordshire CC, but also the newly-formed Eastern Road Construction Unit who were taking over the role of Trunk Road Agent for the project, there were even voices from within the Ministry pushing for a change in classification¹⁶.

W Craig, from the MOT’s London Highways Division, asked whether the Treasury could be approached about the A1-A10 project being built as a motorway. Morris – still working on the project two years later, and still being assailed by questions about whether it could be a motorway – replied that it really depended on a policy decision over whether the whole “D” Ring should be a motorway.

London Highways staff – presumably hoping to lay the groundwork for a change and overcome potential arguments against it – had actually already consulted the Treasury’s Solicitor about converting the project at this late stage of the planning process. The Solicitor had established that the scheme could be commenced under Section 7 and 9 orders (making it an all-purpose road) and then “converted” to Section 11 and 13 orders (making it a motorway) if the legal status of a motorway was required.

This novel solution appears to have been the one that was selected as a way of resolving the dispute. When the first phase of this road, running from the A1 to the A111 at Potters Bar, eventually opened to traffic in 1975, it was as an all-purpose road, A1178 – though physically it had all the features of a motorway. It was subsequently reclassified as a motorway when the adjacent section of the M25 opened in 1984¹⁷.

Interchange at South Mimms

The interchange at South Mimms – today M25 J23 – presented some difficulty to the project since its exact layout would depend on the alignment of the future road west of there. In 1967 the GLC produced their own plan for the section of Ringway 3 between Yeading and South Mimms, passing through Harrow and Stanmore rather than circling around the north and west of the suburbs. This meant that, for a time, there were two competing options for Ringway 3 west of South Mimms: one would have been a greenfield route towards Bushey, preferred by the Ministry, while the other would have involved following the A1 south to Scratchwood, preferred by the GLC.

Eventually the MOT, GLC and Hertfordshire County Council agreed to resolve the problem¹⁸ by developing the design of South Mimms interchange separately to the A1-A111 scheme, preventing the uncertainty over the junction slowing down the road itself. At the same time it was agreed that a dual three-lane motorway formation would be built at the outset, rather than the Ministry’s original proposal to build a dual two-lane road with space for later widening. This decision is what gave us the road’s unusual carriageway separation east of South Mimms, providing space for the westward extension to branch off without prejudicing its direction.

By January 1968 the junction’s layout had been pinned down, in a form that would allow for both eventualities¹⁹. A three-level stacked roundabout would be built where the A1 and A6 cross (today the A1 and M25); the “D” Ring would pass to its south, either travelling west to Bushey, with a spur from the roundabout forming west-facing sliproads, or merging with the A1 southwards. Plans were produced showing the interchange design with both these potential options overlaid.

Change of name to Ringway 3

The A1-A10 project continued to be referred to as part of the “D” Ring by the Ministry of Transport – if not by the GLC – until late 1968. In October of that year a “Firm Programme Report” was issued, which was a standard form produced as part of the routine work to progress a road scheme through the planning process towards construction, logging administrative details about the project.

In several places on the form, the name of the scheme is listed and appears, typewritten, as “London ‘D’ Ring Road”. Each time it was then crossed out in red ink, and replaced, in neat handwriting, with “Ringway 3”²⁰.

Consideration of additional lanes

The expansion of this project, from an isolated section of the “D” Ring to an initial section of Ringway 3, happened with unbelievable pace. In 1965 there was still discussion of building a single carriageway road; by 1968 the design was settled as a dual three-lane motorway awaiting only the application of motorway regulations at a later date.

In 1969 it very nearly took another leap forward when work was under way on the North Orbital Study, an investigation into the demand for orbital travel north of London being carried out by Freeman Fox and Partners, primarily to establish the case for the North Orbital Road’s construction.

In August 1969, an appraisal of the study’s draft report produced the conclusion that there was insufficient demand for the North Orbital to be built east of Hatfield, at least for the forseeable future. This would leave Ringway 3 as the only orbital motorway between the A1 and M11 outside of the urban area. Consideration was clearly given to building it as a dual four-lane motorway as a result. However, this was ruled out by the appraisal:

“R3 will be continued as the only motorway orbital to A1 at South Mimms, thence to M11. This will be in preference to NOR which is not shown to have high enough potential, and cannot be a full motorway anyway in the A41 to A1 sector. The NOR east of Hatfield may not materialise till the 1980s, but because there is the possibility of bringing it forward if needed as a relief to the A1-M11 section of R3, we are able to restrict the A1-M11 section to dual three, which is what RCU have announced for the A1-A10 part.”

Draft appraisal from JA Dole, General Projects Highways, MOT, sent to W Craig²¹

Having been originally predicted to receive funding in 1962, this section of road had instead been on a journey of extremely rapid development, and began construction in 1972 as a motorway rather than the austere post-war ring road that had been envisaged just a decade earlier.

Its opening on 3 September 1975 was announced by a Department of the Environment press release. No longer the “D” Ring, it was referred to instead as a new road between South Mimms and Potters Bar. The eventual number for the road, M25, was carefully avoided. Instead the accompanying diagram showed only the number A1178 in brackets, which was its temporary A-road designation, and names it “Ringway 3”²².

Sources

1. Demonstrated at plan 4, MT 106/117. ↩︎
2. This consensus, and this rationale, are recurring themes throughout MT 106/108. ↩︎
3. Document 3 at MT 106/108, memorandum from JDW Jeffery, Directorate of Roads Engineering, Trunk Roads and Motorways Branch, 18/2/58. ↩︎
4. Document 10, ibid. ↩︎
5. Document 11, ibid. ↩︎
6. Document 12, ibid., minute from TK Burdess, Traffic Engineering Branch, 23/1/59. ↩︎
7. Document 14, ibid., minute from CG Havers, 17/3/59. ↩︎
8. Document 1, ibid. ↩︎
9. MT 106/395. ↩︎
10. Document 151, MT 106/108. ↩︎
11. This was entirely normal practice until the MOT established the Road Construction Units a few years later – much of Britain’s motorway network was actually designed and built by County Councils working on behalf of the Ministry. ↩︎
12. MT 106/395. ↩︎
13. Undated document, from context circa February 1968, MT 106/395. ↩︎
14. Document 47, MT 106/398, minutes from a meeting between MOT, GLC and Herts CC, 6/7/66. ↩︎
15. A Section 7 order under the Highways Act 1959 would create the legal basis for a new all-purpose Trunk Road to be built. ↩︎
16. Document 90, ibid., minutes of a meeting between ERCU, MOT General Projects Highways Division, MOT London Highways Division, GLC and Herts CC, 28/5/68. ↩︎
17. See A1178 at the SABRE Wiki. ↩︎
18. Document 71a, MT 106/398. ↩︎
19. Document 82c, ibid., minute from WG Bruce, Directorate of Road Engineering East, 5/1/68. ↩︎
20. Document 105, ibid. ↩︎
21. Unnumbered document, MT 120/234. ↩︎
22. Press release held at MT 120/316/1. ↩︎