M25 motorway re-examined as a motorway route in Sir Charles Bressey's and Sir Edwin Lutyens' "The Highway Development Survey, 1937". Sir Patrick Abercrombie's "County of London Plan, 1943" and "Greater London Plan, 1944" proposed a series of five roads encircling the capital. The northern sections of the M25 follow a similar route to the World War II Outer London Defence Ring, a concentric series of tanks and pillboxes designed to slow down a potential German invasion of the capital. Little was done to progress these plans until the 1960s when the Greater London Council developed its London Ringways plan consisting of four
West London Orbital most modern standards". The transit time from Brent Cross to Surbiton was quoted as 28 minutes, with a maximum train speed of 80 km/h. The promoters cited a number of reasons why they believed an underground scheme would be cost-effective at £1.75bn: with lower tunnelling costs as the tunnel diameter would be smaller than for a heavy rail scheme; there are no other rail tunnels to avoid (as in central London); and the subsoil strata are suitable for modern tunnel boring machines (TBMs). A number of other notable orbital rail schemes for London have been previously proposed: West London Orbital