The 1937 Highway Development Survey of Greater London (published in 1938), was an attempt to address the rising level of road traffic and congestion in the Greater London area. It was commissioned by the Minister of Transport and was the work of Sir Charles Bressey with Sir Edwin Lutyens acting as a consultant.
In the decades at the end of the 19th century, and the first few decades of the 20th century, traffic on London’s roads had been rising rapidly. This was the result of a number of factors, including:
- Increasing trade, both within the City and with the rapid growth of trade through London’s docks, along with expansion of the docks
- Growth in Greater London’s population from 7.5 million in 1906 to 9.5 million in 1935 (with one fifth of the population of Great Britain and one quarter of the working population)
- New modes of transport (underground, railways) along with growth in buses and trams and trolley-buses, as well as growth in petrol based vehicles
- The growth of the suburbs around London and increasing travel into the centre of the city, from home to work (central London’s population had been in a slow decline due to the growth in industry, but the population of the wider suburbs had been growing rapidly)
The number of motor vehicles in the country was also expanding rapidly, as shown by the following graphs from the report:
Based on a 1922 start point, the number of motor vehicles had grown by 185%, from 1 million, to over 2.5 million, whilst the population had only grown by around 5%, and the number of vehicles by mile of road had risen from 5 in 1922 to 15 by 1936.
The above graphs covered the whole of the country. The report also included lots of London specific data, including the following numbers in a table headed “Millions of Passenger Journeys”:
The majority of the report was the work of Sir Charles Bressey, who was a civil engineer and surveyor with a broad experience of the design of road systems. He was already a surveyor, working in his father’s practice in the City of London, and during the First World War, he put his experience to the construction of military roads in France whilst in the Royal Engineers.
Sir Charles Bressey:
Attribution and source: GPO Film Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sir Edwin Lutyens was known mainly as an architect, designing a wide range of public and office buildings, government offices, churches and private houses. he also designed a number of war memorials, including the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
Their report was published in 1938, and contains a comprehensive number of recommendations to address the expected continual rise in the growth of road usage through to the 1960s.
The report first identifies places which were “Centre of Congestion”, including:
- Oxford Circus – This is the focal point of Oxford Street; at times throughout the day, and particularly at morning and afternoon peak hours, congestion here is excessive, and saturation point is reached.
- Gardiner’s Corner, Aldgate – This is probably the key point to the east end. A large proportion of the traffic from the east and the eastern suburbs to the City and vice versa pass this point. It is adjacent to the Docks, to Spitalfields Market and to the manufacturing and trading districts of Stepney, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, etc. Five roads converge on the point and there is a substantial proportion of turning traffic from and to all the thoroughfares involved.
- Hammersmith Broadway – A complex and badly arranged six way junction in which four of the converging roads are so close together that, without the most extensive alterations, adequate weaving space for roundabout work could not be obtained.
As part of the data collection process to help form the recommendations of the report, four routes across London were selected, and a 16 H.P, Austin Light-Six Touring Car drove along each of the routes every day (excluding Sundays), from 8 am to 7pm (1pm on Saturdays).
The car was “driven by a steady and competent chauffeur, who had no inducement to attempt to break records or to take risk”, and an observer was also in the car armed with a stop-watch and clip board to record times of sections along each of the routes.
Of all routes and sections along the routes, the slowest were:
- between Ludgate Circus and Commercial Road on the west – east route where the average was only 5.85 miles per hour, while of the slowest journey, the pace dropped to 3.6 miles per hour, and;
- between Euston Road and Trafalgar Square, via Tottenham Court Road, on the north-west – south east route. here the average pace was 7.7 miles per hour, while on the slowest journey, the figure dropped to 6.3 miles per hour.
Road improvements included the greater use of roundabouts which were seen as a way of improving traffic flow where several roads met at a junction. The first roundabout in the country was in Letchworth Garden City in 1907, but they would not really proliferate until the 1960s,
The report included several suggested designs for roundabouts, including the following two:
Slow roads were not the only problem identified in the report, there were many other factors identified, including one which showed the expected increase in air travel.
In the 1930s, there were a large number of airfields surrounding London, as the following table from the report identifies:
The number of airfields was expected to increase, with the following table identifying possible new locations:
The recommendations of the report covered new roads, city loops, motorways, street widening, changing the configuration of junctions, including the use of roundabouts, and a comprehensive list of schemes was included in the report:
and:
The recommended schemes include lots of proposals within London, such as the Piccadilly Improvement, Mayfair – Soho route etc. and the report is one of the first I have read which recognises that travel to and from London is dependent on the wider network across the country, so we have proposed schemes such as the Cambridge Road Northern Extension past Ware, Improvement of London to Ongar Road (A.113) and Extension to Norwich, and the London – Birmingham Route.
London to Birmingham would later become either the M40 or the combination of M1 and M6.
Another proposal in the list which would later become a new motorway is the Coulsdon – Crawley – Brighton route, which today is the M23 and A23.
The published report included a pocket at the back of the book in which there were a couple of very large maps.
The proposed new routes and changes were drawn on the maps, and I have reproduced these below.
It was difficult to photograph the maps due to their large size, and as they are almost 90 years old, I wanted to be very careful to avoid any tears or other damage, however I hope the following images provide a view of what was proposed back in 1937:
The above map shows the wider area surrounding London, and we are starting to get a map that is recognisable today, for example:
- A new outer ring road for London, which for 1937 was a considerable way from the centre of the city. This outer ring road (with some changing of routing) is today the M25. Strange though that where the road crosses the Thames to the east, the north and southern routes do not meet at the location of what would become the Dartford Crossing.
- The Motorway network spreading out from London. There are thick red lines running out from London across the wider country. These were the proposed major routes that would connect London with the rest of the country – an urgent need given the increasing number of motor vehicles of all types, both private and commercial.
- The growth in the docks to the east of the city, with the thick red line to the right, leading north from the area around Tilbury, Corringham and Canvey Island.
The list of proposals shown on the map was included in the following key:
The following map shows the Great London proposals:
Along with the following key to the proposals:
Proposals included adding a second tunnel to the Blackwall Tunnel (which would not be completed until 1967), as well as the Rotherhithe Tunnel, which would not get its second tunnel, and would stay to this day as a tunnel with traffic running in both directions in a single bore.
The City Loop-Way was described in the report as follows:
“To relieve the almost intolerable pressure on the main routes which now traverse the heart of the City, converging upon the Mansion House and St. Paul’s Cathedral, the creation of the City Loop-Way is recommended, with a view to encouraging drivers to avoid the most congested central area.
The most important section of the Loop-Way would extend from Blackfriars to the Tower, thus forming a continuation of the Victoria Embankment eastwards to the Tower, thus forming a continuation of the Victoria Embankment Route, through a dingy part of the City, which stands urgently in need of renovation. From the Tower, the Loop-Way would follow approximately the general line – Crutched Friars – Duke Street – Camomile Street – London Wall to Wood Street; from here a new cut would be necessary to reach Aldersgate Street; Bartholomew Close is traversed and replanned, and a proper outlet formed into Farringdon Street, down which we turn to Blackfriars, thus completing the circuit.”
Whilst the Loop-Way did not get built, what is interesting about many of these proposals is how they, or variations of the proposals get included in future plans for London, so for example, parts of the Loop-Way can be seen in the 1944 City of London report covering Post-War Reconstruction of the City of London, where northern and southern routes around the City were proposed extending from Aldgate to Holborn via London Wall, and the Tower to Blackfriars along Lower and Upper Thames Street.
The following map from the 1944 report illustrates these routes as thick red lines to north and south:
Lower and Upper Thames Street did get considerably widened and now form a southern route to bypass the centre of the City of London, with the connection through to Blackfriars being completed in the late 1970s. All that got built of the northern route was the dual carriageway section along London Wall and part of Wormwood Street.
Some detail from the Greater London map shows some of the proposals. The following extract shows the area around the Victoria, Royal Albert and King George V Docks, and the Woolwich River Crossing:
These were the last docks to be built in the central London area, and their size enabled the largest of ships (at the time) to be accommodated in numbers, which resulted in a large amount of products and raw materials to be moved.
These docks were connected into the railway network, but their road connections were considered inadequate for the size of the docks. For example, the road between the Victoria and Royal Albert Docks was “the Connaught Road Swing Bridge which carries but one line of vehicles; its approaches are tortuous and interrupted by level crossings”.
To improve the roads to these docks, the North-South Lea Valley Road was proposed, although it was recognised that “considerable demolition would be required in West Ham and Leyton”.
The Woolwich ferry crossing was also a problem, and the report considered three options:
- the construction of a high level bridge
- the building of a barrage which might accommodate a road
- the driving of a vehicular tunnel
The construction of a bridge in combination with a Thames barrage was the subject of a 1944 report which included the following illustration of what it could look like:
In the almost 90 years after the report was published, we still have the Woolwich Ferry.
One proposal that did get built, and in a far more comprehensive way than proposed in the 1937 plan, was the “Cromwell Road Extension to Great West Road” shown by the red lines in the following extract from the map:
This proposal would evolve into what is today the route from where Cromwell Road turns into West Cromwell Road (by the large Tesco at Warwick Road), and then runs along to the Hammersmith Flyover, down to the Hogarth Roundabout, then to the elevated section of the A4 through Brentford, then to the M4, which runs all the way to Pont Abraham in Carmarthenshire, south Wales.
Bressey wrote the conclusion to the report, as follows:
“The discussions that Sir Edwin Lutyens and I have had during the past three years with representatives of public bodies throughout Greater London have shown how widespread is the desire that the lines of new routes should be authoritatively laid down for rigorous observance as permanent governing features in the ceaseless development and transformation of the Metropolis, where, hitherto, so much uncertainty has prevailed as to the official status of various road schemes which are protected in one area and neglected in another.”
The 1937 report was published just before the start of the Second World War which put a hold on all such forms of development. Many of the proposals in the 1937 report were included in some form in the 1944 Reconstruction of the City of London report and the Greater London Plan by Abercrombie.
Post war lack of finance held up many projects, and it was not until the 1960s when some major projects were completed, such as the first Dartford Tunnel which opened in 1963.
Bressey and Lutyens could not have foreseen the closure of the London Docks and the impact that would have on transport requirements in that area of the City, where today, as well as roads, the Docklands Light Railway has been a considerable success in opening up the area.
As usual, in the context of a weekly bog post, I have only scratched the surface of the information contained within the report. The report contains lots of statistics and information on travel across London, and although getting on for 90 years old, many of the aspects of the report are just as relevant today.
Bressey’s comment in his conclusion about how his discussions had: “shown how widespread is the desire that the lines of new routes should be authoritatively laid down for rigorous observance as permanent governing features “, could I suspect. equally apply to today.
I suspect that there is still such a desire for “rigorous observance” today. As a country, we just do not seem very good at completing large scale infrastructure projects.
For example, the last government cancelled much of HS2 and there is still uncertainty on whether it will end at Old Oak Common or Euston, the current government has cancelled a range of infrastructure projects, including the Stonehenge Tunnel, and there is continuing uncertainty over whether Heathrow will ever get a third runway.
Whether you view these projects as good or bad, uncertainty, change or cancellation just costs and wastes yet more money.
I am sure you will be able to write the same thing in another 90 years time, but it would be really interesting to know what transport infrastructure would have been built across London by 2114.
Will HS2 terminate at Euston, will Crossrail 2 have been built, will there be a new Thames Barrier, and will the Bakerloo Line finally have new trains? Unfortunately, I will probably never know.