Very enjoyable! Worth noting, though, that Westway was never part of Ringway 1 - the Ringways would have been bigger and wider. If you wish to understand the scale of their ambition, the GLC considered Westway to be a Secondary Road.
Really great article. Ten years ago or so at college we used the sports centre underneath the Westway at Ladbroke Grove. Someone pointed out the unfinished junctions on the intersection (visible from Google Earth too) which would have completely decimated Oxford Gardens, Balliol Road etc. Thank God the planners didn’t get to finish what they started
Westway wasn’t part of the Ringways 1-4 routes, and the M25 was parts of Ringway 3 and 4 that were already being built and hastily stitched together to form the now M25. Several arterial roads were also planned but never completed. It was an utter travesty these roads were not built as planned …
Wow, what a bunch of complete mentalists these planners were, no?
My takeaway from this is that this generation were spectacularly out of touch with what the human population of London needed for the future and had adopting a kind of ‘Jetsons’ mindset.
Great article. I read somewhere that the ‘barrier block ‘ in Brixton was partly designed to be a barrier to planned elevated motorway that never got built- but the barrier block did, looking like a huge wall behind which is … nothing much.
Very enjoyable! Worth noting, though, that Westway was never part of Ringway 1 - the Ringways would have been bigger and wider. If you wish to understand the scale of their ambition, the GLC considered Westway to be a Secondary Road.
Yikes!
Really great article. Ten years ago or so at college we used the sports centre underneath the Westway at Ladbroke Grove. Someone pointed out the unfinished junctions on the intersection (visible from Google Earth too) which would have completely decimated Oxford Gardens, Balliol Road etc. Thank God the planners didn’t get to finish what they started
I think the woman in the photo is depicted at this point
Westway wasn’t part of the Ringways 1-4 routes, and the M25 was parts of Ringway 3 and 4 that were already being built and hastily stitched together to form the now M25. Several arterial roads were also planned but never completed. It was an utter travesty these roads were not built as planned …
Wow, what a bunch of complete mentalists these planners were, no?
My takeaway from this is that this generation were spectacularly out of touch with what the human population of London needed for the future and had adopting a kind of ‘Jetsons’ mindset.
Thankfully things moved on!
I spoke with Sir Horace Cutler, later leader of the GLC, in 1972 and suggested that they cancel all the outer Ringroads, as they were too expensive
I recommended that they ask the Department of Transport to build a Motorway outside Greater London
I may have contributed to the creation of the M25, which opened in 1976-1986
I hope this will all my in your autobiography. This is quite amazing!
"all be" I meant...
Great article. I read somewhere that the ‘barrier block ‘ in Brixton was partly designed to be a barrier to planned elevated motorway that never got built- but the barrier block did, looking like a huge wall behind which is … nothing much.
I must admit that I don’t know about that!
It’s covered in my Ringways articles here if you’re interested: https://www.roads.org.uk/ringways/ringway1/south-cross-route