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
M25 motorway opened in 1986 traffic levels exceeded the maximum design capacity and in 1990 the Secretary of State for Transport announced plans to widen the whole of the M25 to four lanes. By 1993 the motorway, which was designed for a maximum of 88,000 vehicles per day, was carrying 200,000 vehicles per day. 15% of UK motorway traffic volume was on the M25 and there were plans to add six lanes to the section from Junctions 12 to 15 as well as widening the rest of the motorway to four lanes. In parts, particularly the western third this plan went ahead,