HLG 159/1318

London Borough of Sutton: Ringway 3 and Route 27

Date range	1971
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series HLG, subseries HLG 159

Context

The London Borough of Sutton was one of many that was unhappy with the GLC's motorway plans. Here it sets out a summary of its objections for the benefit of the GLDP inquiry panel.

Among their grievences are:

• That only a pair of arrowheads show the route of Ringway 3 across their patch of London, but various documents and the position of the arrows can, together, be used to easy deduce the lines under consideration. This, they argue, amounts to planning blight; what's more the uncertainty is leading people to make their own conclusions. They refer to an edition of the Sutton and Cheam Advertiser that did just that: put the pieces together and 'announced' the result as the GLC's motorway route, scaring residents across the borough. The actual newspaper report, and some more detail about this incident, is misfiled at MT 120/250.
• Ringway 3 in the south west is programmed too far into the future to call it a serious plan now, and the likelihood of plans changing in the future makes safeguarding it at this early stage a nonsense.
• There are discrepancies in the GLC's argument that must be resolved. Principal among them is the GLC's assertion that Ringway 3 in the south west is urgently needed and that the South Orbital should come later, when in reality no official line had even been chosen for that part of R3 while the Ministry of Transport was already building the South Orbital motorway.

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a complete copy.