MT 38/15

Correspondence with London County Council

Date range	1912-1914
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 38

Context

In the early years of the Road Board, the majority of the payments it made to local authorities were for "road crusts" - bringing the surface of roads up to an appropriate standard for motor traffic by sealing them, usually with bituminous macadam.

Looking to simplify its system of payments, it hoped that in the London area it might pay all that money to the London County Council who would them pass it on to the various borough councils. The boroughs were unhappy with this, thinking the LCC would fritter it away on its own projects and that they would be left with a smaller share of the money. The LCC were also not very happy with it, because what they really wanted (and had asked for) was to be treated as a separate authority to the boroughs and to get paid some money from the Road Fund separately - in effect causing London to get paid twice for the same roads.

Eventually a conference was held by the Road Board and the boroughs, in the hope of determining how much road sealing work was still to be done before the bulk of the money could be turned over to the LCC's fancy projects, but the LCC refused to attend and insisted on running its own separate conference shortly afterwards.

This established a fractious relationship between the LCC and the Road Board which appears to have persisted for some years.

There is some detail towards the end of the file about space being potentially reserved for new arterial roads through LCC housing projects, for which the LCC wanted paying. The outcome of this isn't clear.

People with camera copies

None known.