MT 106/398

`D' Ring Road: from A1 (South Mimms to A10 Enfield)

Date range	1964-1971
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 106

Context

My original notes on this file actually start with an observation that my hopes are not high, so this is an object lesson in not judging a civil service file by its cover.

This is to do with planning for the "D" Ring Road between the A1 and A10 - a section of road that was meant to be part of Ringway 3, and then after the demise of the Ringways, became one of the first sections of M25 to be opened. In these pages, the Ministry of Transport and the GLC are discussing what form it should take and what the exact scope of the scheme ought to be, based on an original line in the Middlesex County Development Plan which they all agreed needed to be updated a bit.

Contents of note

• Mminutes of some meetings between the MOT, GLC and Hertfordshire County Council, in which a running theme is that the GLC ask whether the road would be a motorway and the MOT say it won't be, even though it's being built to motorway standards. Eventually - after literally several years of such meetings - the MOT agree that it could have motorway restrictions applied later if this was thought necessary. The minutes also reveal that in 1964 the plan was for a two-lane motorway with a wide central reservation for a third lane to be added later.
• A photocopy of a plan showing the route continuing south west at South Mimms interchange, complete with free flow to the A1 south and a spur in the south west quadrant of roundabout. These are alternative options, indicating the final layouts that would apply if the "D" Ring continued towards Bushey or down the A1 to Scratchwood.
• A pro-forma, dated October 1968, called a "Firm Programme Report" that was completed so that the scheme could be accepted into the firm programme for construction. The title "London 'D' Ring Road" appears in type several times and, rather charmingly, has been crossed out each time, replaced in red biro with "Ringway 3".

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.