TIIE NEW ROADS AND THE BEAUTY OF ENGLAND.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—I am the unhappy possessor of a triple grievance on behalf of myself, the local community and the country at large, and am seeking, in this letter, to enlist your sympathy and assistance. Probably very wisely the Surrey County Council is engaged in the construction of a great east and west road for heavy traffic, roughly on the line of the ancient Pilgrim's Way, to connect Dover with Aldershot and Salisbury.
They are making it in penny numbers and it is only too clear that no concrete consideration of the whole and its importance has been given, for a portiori from Reigate to Buckland has been rapidly widened and straightened for the benefit of the unemployed without any preliminary deter- mination of how to get on. Already a " bottle-neck " has been arrived at in this remote and lovely village and already much of the beauty of the old road has gone. To proceed, it is now proposed to fill up part of the pond, largely destroy the village green and drive the road through and spoil four pretty private properties, of which mine is one.
Sir, we are all anxious for fine roads, but surely this is wholly the wrong way to construct a new great traffic-bearing east and west highway. So far from passing through villages it should, pass some distance from them, and already the railway has shown the proper route. We don't want heavy traffic rushing through villages. It makes life a perfect hell for poor mothers with children and the aged. " Bottle- necks " all along the way won't facilitate traffic, especially of the military type, and before any further steps are taken I do beg for your assistance in calling for a superior opinion to that of the highway committee of a county council, and thus stay the spoiling of one of the loveliest roads in the comparative vicinity of London. As everyone is interested I do most heartily hope you can help to ventilate this grievance. The road should stand for five hundred years and requires very careful and wide consideration.—! am, Sir, &c., (Rear-Admiral, retired).
[We are strongly in favour of new, widened and improved roads. They are absolutely essential to that increased motor traffic which is more than due and which if properly organized may be an untold blessing to us all. Door to door transport is a social and political ideal which we must en- courage in every possible way. But there is no reason what- ever why new roads and improved roads should be ugly, destructive of old beauties, and carelessly and stupidly designed. There is no more essential need for ugliness here than in the building of workhouses or railway stations. We are, alas, a supine people in the arts. Ten or twelve years ago the Spectator suggested the formation of Amenities Committees affiliated to the county councils—their duties being not to obstruct or prevent development schemes, but to see that they were carried out in such a way as not to diminish the natural beauty of England. Surely this could stffi be accomplished.—En. Spectator.]
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