Ringway 1 or the London Motorway Box was the innermost of the series of four motorway standard roads, known as the London Ringways as part of a comprehensive scheme developed by the Greater London Council (GLC) to provide high speed motorway-standard roads within the capital linking a series of radial roads taking traffic into and out of the city. The scheme was cancelled in 1973.
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Ringway 1 was planned to comprise four sections across the capital forming a roughly rectangular box of motorways. These sections were designated:
Much of the scheme would have been constructed as elevated roads on concrete pylons and the routes were designed to follow the alignments of existing railway lines to minimise the amount of land required for construction. Nevertheless the disruption and widespread demolition required to build the Ringway would have been considerable; in 1970 the GLC set aside £1.7 billion (approximately £19.6 billion today) for the construction of about half of the Ringways.[1] Of this sum Ringway 1 was expected to cost £480 million (£5.53 billion today) including £144 million (£1.61 billion today) for property purchases. It would require 1,048 acres (4.24 km2) and affect 7,585 houses.[2]
The only parts of Ringway 1 that were constructed were part of the West Cross Route between North Kensington and Shepherds Bush which was opened by Michael Heseltine in 1970, simultaneously with Westway, to loud protests; some residents hung a huge banners with 'Get us out of this Hell- Rehouse Us Now' outside their windows and protesters disrupted the opening procession by driving a lorry the wrong way along the new road.[3] The East Cross Route, including a new 'eastern bore' for the Blackwall Tunnel opened between 1967 and 1979.[4]
Other London Ringways