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Virgin in the neighbouring village of Great Warley.
Astonishing.
Returning to our Ringway. In a breathtaking
demonstration of the polar opposite of Nimbyism
Sir Horace Cutler, then head of the Greater
London Council and a leading lobbyist for the M25,
discovered on the very day the route was
announced that it would pass through the grounds
of his home near Gerrards Cross. And it still went
ahead. Oh yes in his back yard! Yimbyism?
The 117-mile orbital road took more than 11 years
to build at a cost of £1bn. That’s £7.5 million
pounds per mile. Did the ghosts of Henry VIII,
Samuel Pepys or the Romans that lived at
Lullingstone Villa rise from their ancestral lodgings
to haunt the modern day navvies (including a
young Bob Geldolf) as they poured two million
tonnes of concrete and 3.5 million tonnes of
asphalt for the road? Who knows? Who’d notice
above the noise?
The M25 was completed in October 1986 with the
linking of Junction 22 (London Colney) to Junction
23 (South Mimms) and it was opened by the Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher on 29 October 1986
just three days after the “Big Bang” deregulation
of the City of London. Soon after the opening
ceremony (in that very section between J22 & J23
in case you are still awake and wondering) traffic
levels exceeded the maximum designed capacity.
I just haven’t got the heart to take you through the
history of section widening that began in 1990 and
rumbles on to the 2009 PFI project and beyond.
Just glaze your own eyes over slightly and pretend
that I did. Now take a really big deep breath with
your mouth open and your head tilting back and as
that turns into a yawn we’ll call that me telling you
about the introduction of variable speed limits, hard
shoulder running and motorway incident detection
and automatic signalling. Yes I know it is called
MIDAS for short, please do not write in!
So what’s to know if you take a tour of the M25?
Soon after the motorway opened and before all
day and all night jams became the fashion the
orbital nature of the motorway became the ideal
race track for the rich and reckless and until speed
cameras were introduced the new bonus-rich
“yuppies” created by the deregulation of financial
services in the City of London began illegal racing
events in the wee small hours of the morning.
They’d meet in their supercars at one of the three
M25 service stations and conduct time trials, which
according to the then Telegraph journalist and now
London Mayor Boris Johnson were taken very
seriously indeed. Even allowing for a stop to
wrangle in their pockets for change at the Dartford
Tunnel (considerably more awkward in a 1987
Lamborghini Countach 5000 QV
compared to say
a Ford Focus on 07 plates) times below one hour
were recorded suggesting an average speed of
over 117 mph
.
The highest speed ever recorded
by the police on the M25 was 147mph by a twit in
a Porsche in 1992. He was banned from driving.
In 2002 the M25 was named Radio 4’s Most
Hated Place in Britain. As far as I can discover
this has been its only award so far even though
the clockwise off-slip at Reigate is the longest slip
road in the world outside the USA and the road
enjoys the distinction of starring in the single most
asked question on the AA Route Planner.
“How can I avoid the M25?”
In a campaign for recognition of the many
splendours of the M25
It’s the second longest
ring road in the world, just 4 miles shorter
than the one in Berlin
might be a catchy slogan
but in the meantime we must all settle for
Give
Peas a Chance
which is a graffiti painted on the
only Edwardian bridge on the M25 which you will
pass beneath between junctions 16 and 17 at
Denham in Buckinghamshire. It’s the blue-brick
pretty bit I alluded to back in the introduction.
An Oxford Archaeology Historic Building Report
says the slogan was painted in two stages.
Firstly "PEAS" appeared, then "GIVE" and
"A CHANCE" were added later. I didn’t make that
up I promise. The bridge and therefore the graffiti
are now listed. The Peas graffiti even has its own
Facebook page. While we are at it am I the only
one who always giggles at the Staines turn-off?
Or at the signs for the Secret Nuclear Bunker at
Kelvedon?
What else? Well the highest point on the M25 is
at Reigate Hill, some 700 feet above sea level, it
took an Act of Parliament to get it through Epping
Forest, 3.3 million cubic metres of chalk were
removed to force it though the Kent Downs at the
Darent Valley and in 2009 a man called
Mr. Formby from Worthing watched in an anxious
agony as a tortoise crossed all five lanes of the