In the mid-1960s the MOT launched the A13 Improvement Study, which was intended to produce a plan of action for comprehensive improvement of the A13 between Poplar and Rainham – the section, in other words, through the London suburbs, which at that time was decidedly mixed in standard, and suffered notable congestion, even though a large part of it was only about 30 years old, having been built as the Barking and East Ham Bypass.
Consultants’ work
The Study was handed out to engineering consultants Freeman, Fox and Partners (FFP), though the date their work started is obscure. It was evidently already in progress by 1965. The document record for their work is extremely patchy; some of the only reliable information is a scrappy collection of minutes and correspondence gathered during the study1. What has yet to turn up is the final report of their findings, assuming that one was made, or any plans or diagrams they may have produced, with one exception.
The minutes of a meeting held in December 1966 between the MOT and FFP was held to discuss the interchange between the A13 and Ringway 2 – then still referred to as the “C” Ring Road – which was a new requirement arising from the GLC’s decision to build a river crossing between Barking and Thamesmead2. Previously the site had been the southern terminus of a trunk road project usually referred to as the Docks Relief Road, which was absorbed into R2, and later built as the A406 Barking Relief Road.
The minutes state that the interchange had been designed and finalised by FFP and was “not likely to be changed”. This makes it clear that detailed plans for this junction did once exist, but they do not appear to have survived in the document record – or at least, they are not stored with the other information so far discovered about this project.
The issue at stake in this specific meeting was about development of adjacent plots of land, most pressingly an expansion of Beckton Sewage Treatment Works which lies in the south eastern quadrant of the proposed junction. The water authority were requesting information about the land safeguarded for the junction, so that they could plan the expansion of the works, but it was not yet possible to publish any plans of the interchange because the scheme was at too early a stage. As a compromise, FFP had been asked to produce a plan of the site marking the outer boundary of all the land that would be required for every possible variation on the interchange, which could be handed to the water authority without releasing any actual layout options, and would enable planning to go ahead.
That plan survives, and shows an intriguingly irregular shape. It’s not possible to interpret it as being a definitive indication of any particular layout, but it does hint at several likely features:
- Smooth curves to the south west and south east quadrants suggest the left turn sliproads from northbound to westbound, and westbound to southbound, would have permitted very high speeds. This aligns with information found in planning for the R2 Thames Tunnel that the movements between the tunnel and A13 would be extremely heavy.
- Extra land in the north east quadrant on the north side of the A13, which appears to be curved to facilitate a very wide sweeping connection from northbound to eastbound, again fitting with indications that this would be one of the busiest right turns.
- Lumpy protrusions in the north west quadrant which suggest a loop in this area; the fact that there are two similar protrusions may suggest that the site of the loop was not fixed. A loop for northbound to eastbound seems unlikely, on traffic flow grounds and in light of the previous point, so possibly it would have served eastbound to southbound movements.
The above is, of course, speculation based on the barest of evidence.
Other documents suggest that the consultants were finding extreme difficulty in drawing up a realistic proposal for the A13 that would adequately serve the predicted traffic flows. The found that an online improvement of the A13 might require five lanes each way, while any offline route would run into problems with ground conditions given that it would have to run closer to the Thames.
There is agreement between FFP and the MOT that motorway standards (or something approximating them) were quite likely to be needed; hard shoulders were suggested at a minimum width of 5ft, widening to a more generous 8ft wherever possible. There is no hint, however, that motorway regulations would have been applied; all discussion of “motorway standards” is surrounding the physical attributes of the improvement work3.
Recommended improvement
Nothing has yet turned up to indicate what the final recommendation of the study might have been, but there are several clues.
One is a traffic forecast diagram, dated Dec 1965, which indicates that the A13 was suggested for widening to D5 as far east as the A125 at Rainham, then D3 east of there4. Some of the justification for that – and the reason that particular diagram had been produced – was to do with the proposed expansion of a residential area near the A13 in Rainham.
However, 1965 was a time when the study was still in progress and any final recommendation was probably years away. A later perspective comes from another fragment of information on a sketch map of road proposals in East London. The map itself is undated, but papers held alongside it are all from the period 1969-1971, which isolates it in that three-year period. The proposal at that time includes a route labelled “A13 Relief Road”, which would have branched off the A13 in the vicinity of the R2 interchange, running close to the Thames and rejoining the A13 at Dovers Corner near Rainham5.
A further bit of speculation is necessary to join the gaps in the available facts, but one seemingly reasonable interpretation is that a new bypass built to D3 standards, plus the existing road between those points, would add up to the required five lanes of capacity without having to widen the existing A13 to carry five lanes each way. The Relief Road does, therefore, fit in with the certain knowledge that five lanes in total appeared to be required and that a pair of five-lane carriageways were not thought feasible for the existing A13.
References
- “Proposed construction: London-Tilbury Trunk Road A13; Improvement Study; proposals by consulting engineers; meetings and correspondence” held at MT 106/279 ↩︎
- Document 131 at MT 106/279 ↩︎
- See 1. ↩︎
- See 1. ↩︎
- “Principal roads: A13 to Thamesmead including Woolwich River Crossing; consideration of proposals” held at MT 106/453 ↩︎