page_title: A30 road
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: A30 road / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Carland Cross roundabout on the A30 road in Cornwall
context_page_description: The A30 is a major road in England, running WSW from London to Land's End. It is 284 miles long.
  The road was a principal axis in Britain from the 17th century to early 19th century, when it was a major coaching route. It used to provide the fastest route from London to the South West by land until a century before roads were numbered; nowadays much of this function is performed by the M3 and A303 roads. The road has kept its principal status in the west from Honiton, Devon to Land's End where it is mainly dual carriageway and retains trunk road status.
context_section_description: The A30 was one of the first roads to be classified by the Ministry of Transport for funding in 1921. It followed Ogilby's route up to Exeter, then the basic route of the modern A30 through Okehampton, Launceston and Bodmin to the Greenmarket in Penzance, where it ended. It was extended to Land's End in 1925.
  The Great South West Road section of the A30 around Heathrow had been planned as the western end of the Great West Road project, one of the first bypasses built for motor traffic. Construction began in 1914 but was quickly halted because of World War I. It resumed construction in 1919. The full route from Chiswick to Ashford was opened by King George V on 30 May 1925.
  Following the construction of a bypass around Basingstoke, the route of the A30 was changed on 1 April 1933 to run by Sutton Scotney and Stockbridge, rejoining the original route at Lopcombe Corner east of Salisbury. An alternative route, the A303 was created out of existing roads at the same time between Micheldever Station and the Blackdown Hills, that followed the basic course of Hanning's New Direct Road. The A30 remained the principal route between London and Exeter, until the A303 became a trunk road in 1958, receiving central Government funding and relegating the parallel A30 to a local road.
  By the mid-20th century, large sections of the A30 were struggling to cope with the increasing demands of road traffic. In the mid-1960s, numerous councils complained that the Secretary of State for Transport, Barbara Castle, decided that improvements to the A38 from Exeter to Plymouth were of higher priority for funding than any work on the A30. Cornwall County Council complained that the A30 through the county was narrow and twisted, and known as the "stage coach trail".
  Following World War II, the Ministry of Transport planned a large-scale upgrade of the A30 across south-west England, with the eventual intention that most of the route would be at least dual-carriageway. The M3 motorway was planned as a replacement for the A30 between London and Popham. Following a public enquiry in 1966, the line was fixed the following year. The work was completed as far as Bagshot in 1971, then to Sunbury-on-Thames in 1974. In 1971, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Peter Walker announced many upgrades of the A30 across Devon and Cornwall, identifying the section from Okehampton to Bodmin as a key area of improvement.
  The 2.2-mile (3.5 km) Honiton dual-carriageway bypass opened in early December 1966 at a cost of £984,000. The Hayle bypass was first proposed in the late 1970s. It was controversial, and Dora Russell protested against its construction. It was completed in 1985.
   The Okehampton bypass, which opened on 19 July 1988, goes to the south of the town, cutting through the northern edge of Dartmoor National Park in Devon. In the 1980s, the route of the bypass was the subject of a prolonged campaign from conservationists, including Sylvia Sayer, who preferred a route to the north of the town through agricultural land.
  The section between Honiton and Exeter in East Devon was upgraded in 1999 to dual carriageway, giving quicker access to Exeter International Airport. This road was built under the Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) scheme by the private consortium Connect A30, who receive a shadow toll from the Government for each vehicle travelling along the road. Archaeological investigations during the work found a Roman cavalry garrison and later settlement at Pomeroy Wood. There were several protests by environmentalists during construction and the particular nature of the DBFO scheme, with a long-lasting occupation of sites on the planned route, focused around Fairmile. Swampy received press attention for his part in this protest. Along with other controversial road plans, including the M3 completion over Twyford Down and the Newbury Bypass, the action led to a slowdown in road construction throughout Britain.
caption: Carland Cross roundabout
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