Southern Section
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The Ministry of Transport's ambitions to build two ring roads of its own - Ringway 3 and Ringway 4 - meant that they staged their plans carefully. To the south of London, Ringway 4 was programmed to begin earlier. This is why in the north we have 3 but not 4, while here in the south, Ringway 4 exists as the M25, but there is not a trace of Ringway 3.
Most of this motorway was still in the hands of the consultant engineering companies in the early 1970s, and was only programmed to come on-stream for construction in the 1980s. The consultants were busy developing the alignments of two shortlisted routes, but in about 1974 the route was cancelled before a final alignment could be decided. This page presents both alignments, and the more plausible of the two - skirting urban areas rather than going through them - is presented here as the final route, with the more destructive alternative given as a variant.
Continues from R3 Eastern Section
A20/M20
Possible connections to Chelsfield & Orpington
SCRPDR (or Parkway E)
Connections to Croydon & Addington
A23 Purley Way
Possible connections to Beddington & Wallington
M23
Possible connections to Epsom & Sutton
A3
Possible connections to Kingston-upon-Thames & Esher
Bridge over Thames
M3
Continues to R3 Western Section
The route
Beginning on the line of the present-day M25 just south of the junction with the M20, the Southern Section of Ringway 3 would curve away to the south-west to cross the A224 Orpington Bypass. Under the Ringway proposals the M25 between the M20 and M26 would not have existed.
A smooth, gradual curve would have carried the motorway through Chelsfield and Holwood Park, before passing through Birch Wood and curving around the northern side of New Addington. The railway station at Chelsfield was, apparently, rebuilt to the south of its previous location in the 1970s by British Rail. It is thought that this improvement was funded by the Department of Transport and was carried out to move the station off the line of Ringway 3.
At Addington Court Golf Club, or thereabouts, it would connect with the line of the short-lived SCRPDR proposal. It would then run roughly parallel to the A2022 to skirt the south-eastern fringe of Kings Wood. Turning north-west once more, it would cross Purley Downs Golf Course and cross the A235 Brighton Road and A23 Purley Way, before turning south-west again.
Ringway 3 would then pass over (what was then) open land at the site of the old Croydon Airport and traverse the residential areas of South Beddington. From there it would take an easy line, meeting the M23 at the A237 Woodcote Road, and curving south-west through Little Woodcote. It would turn to head west near Banstead Downs Golf Club, crossing the A217, and then turning north-west again, passing through Horton Park Country Club to cross the A24 between Ewell and Epsom.
Skirting the southern fringe of the built-up area at Chessington to cross the A243 Leatherhead Road, the motorway would then interchange with the A3 Esher Bypass at Claygate. It would then cross Surbiton Golf Club before running parallel to the A309 for a short while and passing north of Esher, using the route of the east-west railway line to do so. Turning gradually northwards, it would have run hard up against the south-western edge of the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir and east of Walton-on-Thames, then over the Thames on a new bridge, skirting the eastern edge of Sunbury and handing over to the Western Section on reaching the M3.
Variations
The alternative urban alignment which was developed by the consultants was far more brutal - similar to the epic destruction of Ringway 2's Southern Section. Presumably it was retained in order to provide better access to areas of south London, which would be quite distant from the main proposal described above.
Alternative lines for Ringway 3 near Croydon. The two vertical lines represent M23 and A23
This route would start the same way, and then split from the first proposal just to the east of the A243 at Chessington. It would strike out north-east, largely parallel to the A3 Kingston Bypass, using open land to cross the A240 Kingston Road. From here the route used the alignment proposed in the 1920s and 1930s, and subsequently by Abercrombie, for a bypass of the A24 route, using reserved land along Sheephouse Way to the north of the railway line. It would then run along the southern edge of Morden Park, crossing the A24 Epsom Road and turning south-east. From here the alignment was new. The route would cross the A217 Reigate Avenue south of its six-way roundabout in Morden, then run briefly along the north side of Wrythe Lane before turning gradually to face eastwards.
It would run along the line of the A232 Croydon Road at Beddington, which had a proposed interchange with the M23 here regardless of whether Ringway 3 was routed this way. It would run in a straighter line than the A232, but generally along its route, before branching off south of the Croydon Flyover to bypass the town centre and join the A212 Coombe Road. This would seem to make the southern side of the Croydon Ring Road, including the Croydon Flyover, utterly redundant. At the time the plan was formulated, this part of the ring road was no more than three years old.
Beyond here, it was to use Lloyd Park, Shirley Park Golf Club and the Addington Golf Club to rejoin the main route north of New Addington at Birch Wood.
History
The possible routes for the section of Ringway 3 between M4 and A20/M20 were still being investigated by a private firm of consultants in September 1971, two years after Ringway 2 was made public and at a time when the tide was most definitely turning against the plans. As a result, no definite line was ever selected before the plans were scrapped. This, of course, never stopped the press stirring up some panic. Concerned government memos can be found discussing an article in the Sutton and Cheam Advertiser in 1970 that claimed to show the "final route" for Ringway 3 in this part of Surrey. It is conclusively known that no such thing existed then or at any time since. Local archives, holding copies of local newspapers in the Sutton area, draw a blank for this particular edition, so the route it showed remains a mystery, but the chances are that it was the one Abercrombie had drawn 25 years earlier. This route was one option being considered by the consultants and nothing more.
Two lines for Ringway 3 (thin red and blue) cross an early draft of the SCRPDR route near Addington
The route was seen as a long-term plan for the 1980s, so many design details were not finalised. There is no information, for example, on the locations or designs for any junctions along the route. The standard of road was also never confirmed: it was known that the western half would be a four-lane motorway to urban standards, and the eastern a three-lane motorway to rural standards, but at the time the plan was dropped, the changeover between these two standards was only known to be in the "vicinity of Croydon". For the time being the change in engineering standard happened rather arbitrarily at a grid line on the plans.
