Sir Charles Bressey (engineer) and Sir Edwin Lutyens (architect) were set to work by the Ministry in 1934 to "study and report on the need for improved communications by road ... in the area of Greater London, and to prepare a Highway Development Plan for that area".
And indeed they did. The expansion of the London Underground meant that London itself had grown (by the mid-1930s, the metropolis had extended to Edgware, Gidea Park, and Cheam): it was now necessary to examine a much wider area when considering London's transport network. Bressey and Lutyens came up with a thick report with large maps (one for inner London, one for the outer area) showing the 66 new road plans and over 40 junction improvements they proposed.
Click on the thumbnail to access a map of the schemes (from Thomson: Motorways in London (1969))
Several key "centres of congestion" were identified in the central area. These included Oxford Circus, Holborn, Hammersmith Broadway, Angel, Archway, Cambridge Circus (which was then a roundabout, albeit a very cramped one), the Britannia junction in Camden Town, and Elephant & Castle. To relieve these, roundabouts were suggested for all these troublespots, and some key relief roads. These included an extension of the Embankment so that it linked Putney and the Tower, and a corresponding route on the south side. A "City Loop-Way" was proposed, a circular route skirting the very centre, and an Outer Circle. Also in the list was an "East-West Connection", linking the Western Avenue at Wood Lane with Leytonstone, via Marylebone Road and Hackney Wick.
Outer London got a very thorough examination too. The corresponding "centres of congestion" were identified as the Hanger Lane junction, Brent Cross, Staples Corner and Henly's Corner -- all on the North Circular. Many of these junctions were not designed to cope with the level of traffic, and the presence of trams and trolleybuses (which were now on the way out) had posed an obstacle to many types of junction. The whole of the eastern section of the North Circular was also considered to be in need of relief.
Many of the radial routes into and out of the metropolis were marked as in need of upgrading or bypassing, but the real visionary ideas in the document were the North and South Orbital Routes. These would have been 'parkways' up to 200 ft wide, with restricted access, and flyovers at major junctions. They were to orbit London at a radius of about 20 miles. The North Orbital was to link Staines with the Thames ferry at Tilbury (with a branch to Thurrock and a new tunnel) via Watford, St Albans, Hatfield, Hoddesdon and Brentwood. Some of the North Orbital Road got built, as the A405 and A414 (some sections subsequently being upgraded to the M25 J17-19) The route of the South Orbital was Swanley - Sevenoaks - Redhill - Leatherhead - Byfleet - Staines (roughly the route of the M25). From Swanley another parkway would join up to the other end of the new tunnel at Dartford. Bressey and Lutyens even recognised the need for orbital routes as far out as Great Dunmow and Bishop's Stortford: they proposed the extension of the A120 westwards to Luton.
Most of the new roads in the report were to be 'parkways', but Bressey did give a passing nod to the concept of the motorway: these would be more appropriate for rural radial roads, he felt, and proposed a motorway linking the North Orbital to Birmingham (somewhere between the A5 and the A41), a motorway linking the Barnet Bypass to a point between Nottingham and Grantham (somewhere between the A1(M) and the M1), the extension of the New Chertsey Road, to motorway standard, to between Winchester and Basingstoke (which was later built as the M3), a motorway from East London to Norwich, and a motorway from Croydon to Brighton (built as the M23)
. The report recognised that it would probably be cheaper to build new roads than to upgrade existing roads to motorway standard.