East Cross Route - History

History

The ECR and the other roads planned in the 1960s for central London which formed Ringway 1 of the London Ringways scheme had developed from early schemes prior to the Second World War through Sir Patrick Abercrombie's County of London Plan, 1943 and Greater London Plan, 1944 to a 1960s Greater London Council (GLC) scheme that would have involved the construction of many miles of motorway standard roads across the city and demolition on a massive scale. Due to the huge construction costs and widespread public opposition, most of the scheme was cancelled in 1973 and the ECR and the West Cross Route and Westway in west London were the only significant parts to be built.

At the northern end of the ECR, the unrealised plans would have seen it connect at Hackney Wick to the unbuilt North Cross Route which would have run west across north London and also to the M11 motorway which was originally planned to continue south from its current starting point at the North Circular Road (A406) in South Woodford) to join Ringway 1. Part of this plan was eventually achieved in a modified form when, in the 1990s the 'A12 Hackney to M11 link road', on 'M11 Link Road' was constructed was constructed through Leyton, Leytonstone and Wanstead to connect to the ECR at Hackney Wick. This extension was designated as the A12 and required just the sort of controversial construction methods and widescale demolitions of residential areas that caused the 1960s schemes to be cancelled and provoked to the major M11 link road protest. After the new road was built, the northern part of the ECR became the A12.

Had the North Cross Route been built incoming traffic from the M11 would have been able to continue south-west through the Hackney Wick junction on a motorway standard road towards the The Angel, Islington where it would have met the A1. This motorway would have followed one of two alternate routes; either along the north side of Victoria Park and then the alignment of the Regent's Canal or, more destructively, across the western tip of Victoria Park and along Hackney Road to the north of Bethnal Green, across Hoxton and then to the Angel via City Road.

When the North Cross Route plan was published in February 1967 this road was given the cumbersome title "Eastern Avenue Extension" but it is probable that this road would have been named "Eastway" to form a pair with the Westway which performs a similar function from Paddington to North Kensington and, in fact, a short section of road adjacent to the ECR north of the Hackney Wick junction does bear this name today.

At the southern end of the ECR, the plan was to connect it at Kidbrooke to the South Cross Route (running west across south London), the A2 (heading east out of London) and the A20 (heading south-east out of London). In fact, a new dual carriageway section of the A2 was constructed through Eltham to meet the ECR at Kidbrooke in the 1980s providing an efficient route out of London in this direction and the A20 passes only about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the south although it does not connect directly to the ECR and it was never upgraded to the motorway standard road that was intended.

Without the construction of the other parts of the 1960s motorway plans the context of the ECR has been lost in the subsequent road renumbering and the only section of the East Cross Route which continues to carry the name is the former northern motorway section of the route in Hackney Wick.

Parts of the route, at the northern end between Hackney Wick and Old Ford and south of the river between the Blackwall Tunnel and the Sun-in-the-Sands interchange, were previously classified as urban motorways and given the designation A102(M). The status was downgraded to a standard A-road in 2000 when responsibility for trunk roads in Greater London was transferred from the Highways Agency to the Greater London Authority.