In message m, Martin
Underwood writes

Blimey - a sort of inner-London M25! I'd no idea that there were ever plans
for this!

The original Abercrombie plan (dating back to the 1940s) was for five
ringways. The innermost was Ringway A and roughly on the alignment of
the current inner ring road.

Then came Ringway B, slicing through Kilburn, Hampstead and Islington in
the north, Kensington and Chelsea in the west, crossing the river to
Battersea. It would then have demolished large parts of inner south
London, gone through the Blackwall tunnel and eventually have joined up
with the northern part to form what later became known as the "Motorway
Box". A few parts of this were actually built and still had motorway
numbering until 2000 (e.g. the tiny bit of west-cross route down to
Shepherds Bush, and both approaches to the Blackwall tunnel).

Ringway C was to roughly follow the alignment of the North Circular to
the north of London, and the South Circular as far as Putney. (When I
moved to Sheen in 1976 there were still occasional reserved plots beside
the South Circular for its expansion). After Putney it would have
careered through Wimbledon and other places south of the S.Circular,
eventually crossing the river at Thamesmead before wreaking havoc on
West Ham and eventually joining up with the N. Circular part.

Ringway D was to be mainly just inside the current route of the M25,
while Ringway E was to be a little further out (I think the North
Orbital Road is a remnant of the latter).

The GLC revived the Abercrombie scheme in 1960s. It was found to be
totally uneconomic as well as totally unacceptable, and so the proposals
for routes A and C were abandoned, and routes D and E were combined (the
latter eventually becoming the M25). This just left route B, the
motorway box, which was eventually abandoned in 1973, after some bits
had already been started.

It would have made life hell for all the people who live near the
route, wouldn't it?

And it would have meant rehousing tens of thousands of people. The plan
was not only unaffordable but it was also the cause of the "homes before
roads" protests of the early 70s, which I remember well since I was
living close to the west-cross route in Kensington at the time. It was
also the cause of much planning blight for some years in areas around
the route.

Since few areas of London would have been spared colossal demolition
work and dislocation, most GLC councillors started to get very worried
about the vociferous feedback they were receiving from their
constituents, and so abandonment of the proposals eventually became
inevitable.
--
Paul Terry