AN 169/846

Motorways

Date range	1965-1969
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series AN, subseries AN 169

Context

This file contains BRB's paperwork relating to motorways in London, which is fairly scattergun. Many of the GLC's and MOT's planned urban motorways in London were supposed to run along railway lines, and would have affected railway land, so you'd expect the railways to have had copious correspondence on the matter and generated a fair amount of paperwork, if only for the ones that were built.

What becomes clear from reading this file is that BRB did not work that way. This is the file from BRB's central office, and contains their dealings with the proposed motorways, but BR at that time was regionalised, and any scheme potentially affecting a railway line would have meant the GLC or MOT approaching the region's headquarters. Each region would therefore have dealt with individual cases separately and there was little or no oversight of the wider picture. In fact, one of the few real revelations here is that BRB's central office was caught completely by surprise when the GLC unveiled Ringway 1 in 1965, wanting to know why there had been no consultation about plans to build motorways over, under and alongside many of its lines, only to then discover that the various regions were entirely aware but had never mentioned it to central office or to each other.

Contents of note

• Newspaper cutting from the Evening News and Star, 1/4/65, with the headline "PATHFINDER GUIDE To The London Motorway Ring". This is press coverage of the public unveiling of Ringway 1 - then still the London Motorway Box.
• A copy of the letter that had been sent by the GLC to all the Boroughs on 19 March explaining the motorway plans. This would have been the first the Boroughs officially knew about the London Motorway Box, just a couple of weeks before it was announced to the press.
• Some very specific correspondence about whether Streatham Goods Yard/Eardley Sidings could be released for the M23. There is lots of back and forth but no decision on this.

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.