MT 106/108

Middlesex CC: `D' ring orbital road in Potter's Bar and Enfield

Date range	1958-1963
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 106

Context

Correspondence and minutiae generated by the MOT in the earliest days of planning for what is now the M25 between junctions 23 and 25 (the A1 and A10). In the late 1950s this was the first bit of the "D" Ring Road scheduled for construction, and there are hints here that it was expected to come on stream in 1962/63. That was about ten years before spades hit the ground for real.

Aside from the usual questions from busybodies living near the line of the route, the main interest here is actually what the MOT were going to call the road. Nobody seriously believed that it would be referred to as the "D" Ring Road when it opened, and besides, it needed a formal trunk road name: being a brand new trunk road, it didn't already have one. Among the proposals were the "Greater London Northern Ring Road". Eventually the more prosaic "Sunbury-Harrow-South Mimms-Waltham Abbey Trunk Road" was chosen, and it became TR115. My notes parenthetically add "thank heavens for the GLC and the word 'Ringway'".

Of particular interest are the many references to why this section had to be first. It was seen as key to connecting north east London with the new M1, relieving minor east-west roads in Middlesex of through traffic, and forming a key part of a road system connecting the Midlands and the north with the docks in East London.

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.