MT 106/437

GLC: North Cross route and Eastern Avenue extension; consideration of proposed major road network for North Central London; includes consultants' reports (5 parts)

Date range	1967-1972
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 106

This file is truly delightful. It is likely to bring a smile to your face, probably because it contains the sort of thing that makes trawling through dusty archive documents worthwhile. The thing in this file that makes your day might actually have nothing to do with its subject matter.

Context

As part of the Greater London Council's proposals for the "Ringways" - a vast network of urban motorways for London - plans were drawn up for the North Cross Route, a new motorway across the north of the central area. Details of this plan (and the rest of the GLC's crazy schemes) are on the CBRD Ringways pages.

This file is the key one for the North Cross Route proposal, containing papers, correspondence and press cuttings from the era, as well as GLC documents and publicity. It also contains - joy of joys - the full consultants' report.

Contents of note

• Parliamentary questions on planning blight and re-homing people for Ringway 1.
• Newspaper article about Barbara Castle buying a flat on the line of the NCR - it turns out it was adjacent to the line, in a building designed to shield its residents from the motorway, but the journalist was still able to get some apoplectic remarks from Castle and her husband.
• GLC booklet explaining the NCR and WCR to the public, with modified aerial photos showing the routes.
• Full copy of the Travers Morgan report into the NCR, published December 1966.
• Most excitingly - full engineering plans of the whole NCR, plus the M1 extension to Kilburn, in colour, on A1-size plan sheets.

Related files

GLC/TD/T/07/003 Plan of the proposed Provisional Urban Motorway 1:2500

HLG 159/2457 London Borough of Camden: North Cross Route and Camden By-pass; maps (1966-1967)

LCC/PP/HT/001 Proposed South Cross route and North Cross route (1965)

North Cross Route: General Report (1966)

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy, including all those delicious engineering plans.