MT 106/280

Proposed construction: M12 Motorway; special roads order; trunk road survey under s7 of Highways Act 1959; Radial Route 7; programming report

Date range	1965-1970
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 106

Context

Despite the massively long title, this could simply have been labelled "M12 Motorway", though as the term "Radial Route 7" was still in use at the time, it crops up regularly in the file.

The file is effectively the story of the conception of the M12, and deals with its handing out to consultants for development and design work. There is a lot more here about the administrative aspects of the dealings with private consultants, and of soil surveys, than anything else. It does, however, explain how the M12 came about - essentially after comprehensive improvement of the existing A12 was investigated and found to be extraordinarily expensive, largely owing to the problem of Gants Hill; and the point at which Radial Route 7 became the M12, which was evidently in March 1969.

Comments are here from GLC officers who had clearly been looking at engineering plans of the M12, complete with junction layouts, but the plans to which they refer are (all together now) not here.

Contents of note

A full text description of the originally Ministry planned M12 from South Woodford to the Brentwood Bypass. It also includes some outline maps.

Links to other files

MT 106/281 Proposed construction: Radial Route 7; South Woodford to Brentwood bypass; traffic study and preliminary site investigations (1963-1966)

People with camera copies

Steven Jukes has a partial copy.