The Ring Road - Trust Annual Report 1974
Members of the Trust will know that the ring road has been a recurring theme in our Annual Reports ever since the plan was put forward in 1963.
Questions asked by the Trust at the M3 Inquiry, concerning the effects of the motorway on Winchester's traffic were brushed aside as irrelevant, and no work at all was done on the traffic problems for the next three and a half years. The figures demonstrating the need for the ring road, anticipate a traffic flow in 1984, equal to the present flow on the by-pass. Thus we have gone full circle. In the thirties a by-pass was built to take the traffic out of Winchester and in the seventies it is proposed to build a road to put it all back again.
The scale of demolition and new construction this would require, appears to indicate that this is expected to provide a permanent solution, but District Study figures show that it would be full up almost as soon as it was completed. That is of course if we are prepared to accept the estimated figures for the rate of traffic increase, which do not take into account the increase in the cost of oil fuel, the impact of inflation or the unexpected fall in the birthrate. But suppose that the estimates are correct—what then ? Will the ring road be widened to six lanes ? Will there have to be dual carriageways down all the radial roads? Will more of the city centre have to be demolished to provide more car parks ? If this is not the case then it must be asked why Winchester should be permanently destroyed for the sake of a few more years of extra mobility, and even that for people living outside the town.
The exhibition displaying the details of the proposals, held in November, should be followed up by a coach trip to Canterbury so that the errors made in another historic city can be examined for their relevance to Winchester. Mr. Michael St. John Parker who has lived in both cities, makes the following important comparison.