Western Section
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Between the M3 and the M1, Ringway 3 was probably going to be a motorway, though this is not a certainty. (See History, below.) Large sections of it would be upgraded from existing all-purpose road of a lower standard, and the availability space to perform the upgrade was never a problem. Most of the route had been planned for decades as part of Abercrombie's "C-Ring", and had been built over the previous twenty years as dual carriageways with generous grass verges and land-take.
Continues from R3 Southern Section
Bridge over Thames
M3
Local connections to Feltham & Ashford
A30 & Heathrow Airport
M4
Local connections to Hayes & Southall
A40/M40
Denham Spur leading to M40 & Ringway 4
Local connections to Harrow & Ruislip
M1
Continues to R3 Northern Section
The route
Travelling clockwise around London, the Western Section begins on the River Thames, with a bridge at Wheatley's Ait. It was then to skirt the eastern edge of Sunbury to arrive at the M3. Plans differ slightly here; some show Ringway 3 connecting directly at M3 junction 1, which would presumably have been remodelled. Other plans indicate a new junction west of there at Upper Halliford, and it is known that land was reserved here for an interchange immediately to the east of the bridge carrying the A244 Windmill Road over the M3 (see History, below).
From here the motorway would pass through the suburban area of Felthamhill to reach open land between Ashford and Lower Feltham. The route would then bypass Feltham itself to the north-west, passing through East Bedfont and then curving east to join the A312. The A312 at this point hints at the intended alignment, where The Causeway makes a sudden turn to become Faggs Road: Ringway 3 should have joined this from the west. The motorway would then continue as an upgrade of the existing A312, taking it across the M4 at junction 3, then up what is now the A312 Parkway (or Hayes Bypass) to reach Yeading.
North of this point, all documents so far uncovered relating to the line of Ringway 3 show that the alignment of the route was still under debate, and it is not known whether a final selection was ever made. As ever, it was a case of the GLC against the Ministry, and in this instance the Ministry of Transport's preferred line was looking like the most likely.
This route took the road north-west, branching off from the A312 along the line of Yeading Brook to bypass Yeading to the west. It would cross the A40/M40 at a new junction just south-west of RAF Northolt, near to Gutteridge Wood. It would then strike north-west, seemingly cutting one of the airfield's runways short, then pass through a small patch of built-up land at West Ruislip station, before turning west into open country. At this point it was joined by the Denham Spur, a short section of connecting road that would run to what is now M40 junction 1. At the time, Ringway 4 would have connected to the M40 there, so the Denham Spur was intended to form an important connection between the two rings.
The route would curve gradually north-eastwards across Ruislip Common, through a heavily wooded area. It then traversed another small patch of suburban development at Northwood Hills, before passing through a corridor of open land close to Pinnerwood House and Oxheylane Farm. At this point the route information dries up, but the next section of motorway continues from the M1 somewhere between junctions 4 and 5, so Ringway 3 would take one of three routes: north of Bushey, south of Bushey, or straight through it.
Variations
The GLC had different plans for Ringway 3, and neither their line or the Ministry's was ever selected as the preferred route before the whole thing was cancelled. The GLC line split from the Ministry's at Yeading Brook. Where the Ministry line was to head north-west along Yeading Brook itself, the GLC's route would follow the A312 through Yeading itself to the existing junction between the A40/M40 and A4180 at Priors Farm.
It would then strike north-east, passing through heavily built-up residential areas at South Pinner, crossing the Metropolitan and Piccadilly Tube lines west of Rayners Lane station, before passing slightly east of Pinner. It would have rejoined the Ministry line north-west of Harrow, between Pinnerwood House and Oxheylane Farm.
The GLC line (red) and Ministry line (green) converge at Pinner Green
Neither line was ever selected, but there is a good reason behind the assumption that the Ministry's preference was the more likely of the two. In 1971 the two routes were costed. The Ministry's option came in at £27m; the GLC's was £51.3m. The argument the GLC put forward was that their route was more 'accessible', by which they meant that it provided better access to the places it was meant to serve. This was not surprising given that it would have run right through some of the more affluent areas of north-west London. Theirs was a direct descendant of a plan that had existed since the 1950s, itself born of Abercrombie's C-Ring, to dual the A-roads connecting the M1 and Heathrow Airport.
History
Much of this side of Ringway 3 is immediately descended from Abercrombie's ring road plans. While much of the Ringway plan was obviously an updated version of Abercrombie's work, this part stands out as being simply a motorway built on his proposed line, particularly around Feltham and Southall. The plan survived for quite some time after the demise of the Ringways: the section of A312 between M4 and A40 was only finally opened in its current form in the last twenty years, providing a partially grade-separated dual carriageway on a Ringway line.
What precisely the GLC had planned in the 1960s is less clear. No junction plans have turned up, with the exception of an intriguing property dispute near Upper Halliford station in late 1967. Sunbury Urban District Council had approved planning permission for eleven houses at Nursery Road. They ended up having to make an embarassing U-turn after the Ministry of Transport caught wind of the approval and reminded them that nothing was permitted there because the land was reserved for the junction between Ringway 3 and M3. Their correspondence with the Council came complete with a small-scale plan indicating the protected corridor (shown right, with protected land shaded red). The junction itself isn't shown, but the size and shape of the reserved land suggests a three-level roundabout junction with a north-to-west free-flow sliproad passing under Windmill Road. This is the only junction information that exists for this section of Ringway 3.
A memo from the Ministry of Transport in 1968 explains that most of the schemes in place and designs produced by consultants were either to urban or rural motorway standards, so we can assume that a high-standard of road, fast and fully grade separated, was the template. It was to be built to urban standards between M3 and Yeading, and from there to M1 a full rural motorway line was possible. But no definite route number has been pinned down for this section of Ringway 3. One file on the road's planning is named "Highway Projects - Planning: Ringway 3 (M16) Yeading to South Mimms", but the number does not occur anywhere else within the file, so it's hard to say if this was its proposed number or if it's just a sloppy file name.
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With thanks to Stuart Johnson for information on this page.
