The “Faggs Road Spur” was a proposal from the mid-1960s to build a section of the “D” Ring Road, later Ringway 3, as part of the M3 construction project. At various points it was either to be a standalone spur, or a fully completed section of R3 awaiting the parts to the north and south, or a part-completed section of R3 with space for future widening to its final intended width.
The circumstances in which it was abandoned are not entirely clear; the case for building it as part of the M3 scheme was very strong and it appeared to be a serious likelihood for a time.
Regardless of its ultimate dropping from the roads programme, it serves a useful purpose because it is the only known source for the alignment and cross-section of R3 between the M3 and A30.
Timeline
Early appearances of the Faggs Road Spur (FRS) begin in July 1967, but from the context it is clear that it’s been in planning for some time by this point. MT 106/287 includes a minute suggesting that it should be completed and opened to traffic within a year of the M3 reaching Sunbury Cross1.
At a meeting in April 1968, MOT civil servants agreed the cross-section of the FRS would be D2 with provision for later widening to D3 and “near motorway standards”2. Strangely, this is 18 months after a policy decision made by the MOT’s London Highways Division that the whole of R3 would be a motorway3. The minutes also record that it is unlikely that connections could be provided between the FRS and the M3 to/from London without having to remove the west-facing slips at Sunbury. Descriptions and diagrams of the R3/M3 interchange after this date inevitably show full access at either R3 or Sunbury Cross, but never at both, and sometimes with limited access at both junctions.
A Planning Brief a few months later describes the FRS as envisaged at that time:
“The proposed scheme is to act as a high standard collector/distributor road for major traffic flows for areas in W. and N. W. London, and beyond to and from the planned M3 motorway. In addition it may form part of a future D Ring orbital route around London.”
Planning Brief, ‘D’ Ring M3 – Faggs Road Spur, MOT, August 19684
The same brief then describes the spur has being D2 with 10ft hard shoulders, reducing to 8ft width at structures, and a 50mph speed limit. There would be one intermediate junction, whose location is not specified, but based on later discussion a safe bet would be at the A315.
Again, this is oddly incompatible with the policy decision to make the whole of R3 motorway, but may reflect the fact that the FRS was being planned as part of the M3 project and had been developed to the state described here by Middlesex County Council in parallel with the M3’s development, and its genesis was therefore from a slightly earlier era of planning. There was also the possibility that it would only end up forming one branch of R3, with an “outer” and “inner” alignment considered for construction in parallel between the A30 and M3/A316. More detail on that is below.
Alignments
The alignment of the FRS follows the line for R3 between the M3 (where a west-facing fork junction would join the country-bound motorway; this appears to be compatible with the design for a free-flowing west facing junction) and the A30. It would run in a relatively straight line to the A315 Staines Road at Cassiobury Avenue, then turning north east to flow into The Causeway at Faggs Road. This line is the principal one used for most of the time that the FRS was an active proposal and is variously referred to as the “Development Plan Route” or the “Outer Route”.
An alternative “western route” would diverge from the above alignment at Lakeside Sports Ground, curving north west and then north again to flow end-on into the beginning of the A30 Great South West Road at Clockhouse Roundabout. It would then follow the A30 to reach The Causeway. This alignment is not described in any documentation and was perhaps not pursued in any detail.5
Inner alignment
An alternative route for the FRS appears on some plans and is known as either the “Eastern Route” or the “Inner Route”. As the “Eastern Route” it forms an alternative option for the alignment of the FRS only, and a plan exists showing it terminating on the A305 (now A316) Country Way between Castle Way and Oxford Way. As the “Inner Route” it appears to have been an alternative option for the alignment of R3, in which guise it would have continued south of the A305/A316 and on to South London.
The route would travel south east from the junction of the A30 and The Causeway along the line of the River Crane, before curving south west into Leitrim Park and then south again through Hanworth Park to reach Country Way.
One diagram shows suggested cross-sections for the FRS and neighbouring sections of R36. It appears to have been created at a time when the FRS was expected to be built, but there was uncertainty about whether R3 would follow the Inner or Outer Route, opening up the possibility that the FRS would be built on the Outer Route but that R3 would then be built on the Inner Route instead of subsuming the Spur.
The suggestion, in that diagram, is that the FRS would be built as D2 with The Causeway widened to provide a D2 route all the way to the M4. That would be an interim stage until R3 itself was built. The ultimate configuration would then be D3 through the underpass below the M4, and D4 southwards from the M4. If R3 took the outer alignment, the FRS would then be widened to provide D3 down to the M3; if it took the inner alignment the FRS would remain D2 and the Inner Route would be built as D3.
Traffic forecasts
Data from September 1969 provides forecast traffic flows as follows, assumed to be AADT7.
| Section | Forecast |
|---|---|
| M3 Thorpe (South Orbital Road/M25) to FRS | 81,000 |
| M3 FRS to Sunbury Cross | 47,000 |
| FRS M3 to A30 | 34,000 |
| A305 (now A316) Sunbury Cross to Feltham | 75,000 |
In a world where the M3 between J1 and 2 was expected to carry more than the present one car per week, the FRS would be seen as a vital distributor to disperse traffic approaching London. The M3 between FRS and its terminus at Sunbury would be noticeably quieter than the sections of road either side.
References
- London- Basingstoke Motorway, `D’ Ring Road M3: report by consultants, held at MT 106/287 ↩︎
- ibid. ↩︎
- Highway projects: proposal for motorway ring road for London; `D’ ring road, held at MT 106/413 ↩︎
- See 1. ↩︎
- MT 106/287: Plan sheet 1 shows both the FRS and inner R3 route, including rough junction layouts at M3/A305 – FRS ending at a fork onto M3 with space to continue south, and inner route terminating on a trumpet at A305. ↩︎
- ibid. ↩︎
- See 1. ↩︎