Catalogue description Transport Ministries: Highways (Trunk Roads) (HT Series) Files

Until 1936 the development of roads and highways was the responsibility of local authorities, and the national network of principal or trunk routes was subject to the varying standards and finances of the local authorities.

The Trunk Roads Act of1936 brought principal highways (as distinct from the smaller Classified and Unclassified roads) under the direct control of the Minister, making the Minister the highway authority for 4,500 miles of principal route. The Trunk Roads Act 1946 added a further 3,500 miles.

For the most part work on these roads continued to be carried out by the local authorities acting as agents for central government. However, the Minister now controlled policy and finance and through the Highways Trunk Roads Division maintained close liaison with the highways authorities. The need to cater for the increasingly heavy demands traffic resulted in the Special Roads Act 1949, which for the first time created classes of roads not open to all types of traffic. Chief among these new roads was the motorway.

Under the Trunk Roads Act 1946, the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and the Special Roads Act 1949, the Division laid down the lines for new trunk roads, authorised works and carried out the required preliminary procedures, particularly the making of statutory orders (sometimes after holding public inquiries) which provided the legal basis for individual schemes. As a part of this work it also became responsible for the construction of bridges over, and tunnels under navigable waters where they were crossed by trunk roads, and for acquiring and managing land required for trunk road purposes.