GLC/RA/D2G/03/083

Ringway 3: M4 to Uxbridge Road

Date range	1971-1972
Location	London Metropolitan Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Fond GLC, subfond RA/D2G

Context

As the body responsible for landscaping new roads and blending them into the landscape, the Arts and Recreation Division held files on many of the road schemes that were built or got close to being built across London.

This file is, as a result, mostly concerned with preserving the amenity of the chain of green spaces and public footpaths that was becoming known as the M4 Linear Park, but contains more general notes on the Ringway 3 scheme (which was to be the first urban section of R3) that are valuable to us.

We learn that:

• the route would have been dual three-lane standard, built by the GLC as agent for the Ministry.
• it would open as all-purpose and become a special road when an adjoining section of motorway was connected to it.
• this scheme could not continue beyond A4020 at this stage as that would prejudice the route onwards, which at this stage was under investigation and could have run anywhere from Ruislip in the west to Stanmore in the east.
• the motorway would cross the railway on a long viaduct, as the A312 does today, the original proposal for an embankment having been ruled out due to the proximity of new industrial buildings.
• it would, when continued south, have passed underneath the roundabout at M4 junction 3.
• as a temporary southern terminus, the motorway would stop at an enlarged north side of the junction 3 roundabout. From there ground-level slip roads would continue to Hayes Road, with inner carriageways elevated in between them which would eventually form the mainline of the motorway. There would have been no north-facing sliproads from Hayes Road and no other junctions until the terminus at A4020.
• on approaching the A4020 the carriageways would flare out, leaving space for a future underpass below the roundabout, which would from the outset be raised above ground level. A one-way link would be provided in to Springfield Road from the south eastern sliproad.
• orders for this section of road were actually published by the DoE in 1971.

People with camera copies

None known.