38-531: B roads are numbered routes in Great Britain of lesser importance than A roads . See the article Great Britain road numbering scheme for the rationale behind the numbers allocated. (some data from openstreetmap.org) B roads in Great Britain In Great Britain , there is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads. Each road is given a single letter (representing
76-413: A category) and a subsequent number (between one and four digits). Though this scheme was introduced merely to simplify funding allocations, it soon became used on maps and as a method of navigation. There are two sub-schemes in use: one for motorways , and another for non-motorway roads. While some of Great Britain's major roads form part of the international E-road network , no E-routes are signposted in
114-563: Is "not advised". Exceptions to this are known in the forms of numbers on signs and past use of prefixes H and V on signs in Milton Keynes where main roads have a regular grid system . These designations are used when planning officers deal with certain planning applications , including the creation of a new vehicular access onto a highway. The letter Q is used for many important unclassified roads in Fife . In London, Cycleways are using
152-790: Is a major road in England . It runs from the A33 and M3 at Winchester in Hampshire , to the A6 and A6042 in Salford , close to Manchester City Centre. It forms a large part of the major trunk route from Southampton , via Oxford , to Birmingham , The Potteries and Manchester . For most of its length (together with the A5011 and parts of the A50 , and A49 ), it forms part of the former Winchester–Preston Trunk Road . Improvements to
190-642: Is between Zones 1 and 2, where the River Thames defines the boundary so that all of Kent is in Zone 2. The first digit in the number of any road should be the number of the furthest-anticlockwise zone entered by that road. For example, the A38 road , a trunk road running from Bodmin to Mansfield starts in Zone 3, and is therefore numbered with an A3x number, even though it passes through Zones 4 and 5 to end in Zone 6. Additionally,
228-545: Is denoted by the colour of the sign border and direction arrow, and can be summarised as follows: Roads and lanes with yet lower traffic densities are designated as unclassified roads commonly using C , D and U prefixes but, while these are numbered, in general this is done for use by the local authorities who are responsible for maintaining them and the non-unique numbering is in a local series which usually does not appear on road signs; use of local numbers on signs in England
266-583: The A13 (London to Shoeburyness); the next radial is the A2 , followed by the A20 (London to Dover), and so on. These roads have been numbered either outwards from or clockwise around their respective hubs, depending on their alignment. The system continues to three and four digit numbers which further split and criss-cross the radials. Lower numbers originate closer to London than higher numbered ones. As roads have been improved since
304-697: The A43 (which had originally followed the route of the present B430) and A421 . Much of the long-distance traffic formerly carried by the present A3400 now uses the M40 to Birmingham, and the M42 and M6 to by-pass the city. When the Newbury Bypass was opened in 1998, the old route through Newbury became part of the A339 and the B4640. The long planned and often postponed Alderley Edge bypass
342-1101: The C prefix and marked using pale green signs. There are also some CS prefixes for Cycle Superhighways, marked using magenta signs, but these are being phased out. Despite numerous large roads in Great Britain being part of the International E-road network , no road that forms part of this network is signposted as such and only the road's national designation is shown. The same is true in Northern Ireland. A34 road (England) [REDACTED] A303 [REDACTED] M4 [REDACTED] A44 ( [REDACTED] A40 ) [REDACTED] M40 [REDACTED] A41 [REDACTED] M42 [REDACTED] A41 [REDACTED] M6 [REDACTED] A5 [REDACTED] M6 Toll [REDACTED] A51 [REDACTED] A500 [REDACTED] A53 [REDACTED] A54 [REDACTED] M56 [REDACTED] M60 [REDACTED] A57(M) [REDACTED] A56 The A34
380-505: The M1 the zones were defined for Zones 1 to 4 based on the proposed M2 , M3 and M4 motorways . The M5 and M6 numbers were reserved for the other two planned long distance motorways. The Preston Bypass , the UK's first motorway section, should have been numbered A6(M) under the scheme decided upon, but it was decided to keep the number M6 as had already been applied. The first full-length motorway in
418-707: The Oxford Ring Road was completed to the west of Oxford in 1962, the old route through the city was renumbered the A4144 . On completion of the Abingdon Bypass in the 1970s, the old route from the Oxford Ring Road through Abingdon and Steventon to Chilton was partly declassified (for 5 miles (8.0 km)) and the rest renumbered A4183, B4017, A4130 and A4185. In 1987, the A34 between Walsall and Bloxwich swapped routes with
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#1732858857045456-400: The A road designation, for example A3(M) , A329(M) , A38(M) , A48(M) and A627(M) . B roads are numbered distributor roads , which have lower traffic densities than the main trunk roads, or A roads. This classification has nothing to do with the width or quality of the physical road, and B roads can range from dual carriageways to single track roads with passing places. B roads follow
494-690: The A1 in Newcastle upon Tyne has moved twice. Originally along the Great North Road, it then moved to the Tyne Tunnel , causing some of the roads in Zone 1 to lie in Zone 6. The designated A1 later moved to the western bypass around the city, and roads between the two found themselves back in Zone 1. For the most part the roads affected retained their original numbers throughout. Elsewhere when single-digit roads were bypassed, roads were often re-numbered in keeping with
532-494: The A34 was Winchester to Oxford, much shorter than it is today. It was extended to Manchester on 1 April 1935, replacing part of the A42 (Oxford to Birmingham through Shipston-on-Stour , Stratford-upon-Avon and Henley-in-Arden ), A455 (Birmingham to Stafford), part of the A449 (Stafford to Newcastle-under-Lyme) and A526 (Newcastle to Manchester). By 1953 the route was as follows: When
570-615: The Board's senior engineers, to devise a classification system and then assign numbers to the highways for identification purposes. The work was interrupted by the First World War . It did not resume until the Ministry of Transport was formed in 1919 and given authority to classify highways and to allocate funding for road maintenance, authority for which was granted by section 17 (2) of the Ministry of Transport Act 1919 . A classification system
608-509: The M40, the A34 forms an important route carrying freight from Southampton to the Midlands . Because of the volume of traffic, bypasses were built along this route – at Newbury on the A34, and at Twyford Down near Winchester on the M3 – but these were controversial for environmental reasons. Notably instead of cutting a short road tunnel through Twyford Down, the escarpment was carved out for
646-532: The Ministry direct control of major routes and a new classification system was created to identify these routes. Originally, those numbers beginning in T were to be made public, but that was eventually deemed unnecessary. With the introduction of motorways in the late 1950s, a new classification of "M" was introduced. In many cases the motorways duplicated existing stretches of A road, which therefore lost much of their significance and were in some cases renumbered. There
684-573: The UK was the M1 motorway . Shorter motorways typically take their numbers from a parent motorway in contravention of the zone system, explaining the apparently anomalous numbers of the M48 and M49 motorways as spurs of the M4, and M271 and M275 motorways as those of the M27 . This numbering system was devised in 1958–59 by the then Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation , and applied only in England and Wales. It
722-612: The United Kingdom in the Isle of Man , Jersey and British Overseas Territories . Work on classification began in 1913. The Road Board had been established in 1909 to administer Vehicle Excise Duty - money raised by taxation to pay for new road construction and for repair of damage done to existing roads by the growing number of motorists. As the Board needed to work out which roads should be funded, upgraded or replaced, its secretary, William Rees Jeffreys , appointed Henry Maybury , one of
760-616: The United Kingdom. Due to changes in local road designation, in some cases roads are numbered out of zone. There are also instances where two unrelated roads have been given exactly the same number; for example, the Leicester Ring Road and a road in Cumbria are both designated A594. This scheme applies only to England , Scotland and Wales ; a separate system using similar conventions is used in Northern Ireland , as well as outside
798-407: The aim of better targeting road funding. Some A roads are designated trunk roads , which implies that central government rather than local government has responsibility for them. A more recent classification is that of primary routes , the category of recommended routes for long-distance traffic. Primary routes include both trunk and non-trunk roads. Some sections of A roads have been improved to
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#1732858857045836-416: The basis for the numbering of the A road network, they are no longer necessarily major roads, having been bypassed by motorways or other changes to the road network. These radials are supplemented by two-digit codes which are routes that may be slightly less important, but may still be classified as trunk routes, although many of these routes have lost a lot of their significance due to motorway bypasses, or
874-450: The latter. Shortly after this, the numbers started to appear in road atlases and on signs on the roads themselves, making them a tool for motorists in addition to their use for determining funding. The numbers of the roads changed quite frequently during the early years of the system, because it was a period of rapid expansion of the network and some numbered routes did not follow the most usual routes taken. The Trunk Roads Act 1936 gave
912-474: The new motorway would take the name of the old A road rather than having its own number. The most notable example of that is the A1(M) . In England and Wales the road numbering system for all-purpose (i.e. non-motorway) roads is based on a radial pattern centred on London . In Scotland the same scheme is centred on Edinburgh . In both cases the main single-digit roads normally define the zone boundaries. The exception
950-609: The northern section, at junction 9 of the M40 motorway . It continues south as the western part of the Oxford Ring Road , crossing the River Thames on the A34 Road Bridge . It then bypasses Abingdon , Didcot , and Newbury before finishing at junction 9 of the M3 motorway . This part of the A34 forms the E05 European route. It is a dual carriageway throughout. Together with parts of the M3 and
988-477: The original zone boundaries. A few roads are anomalously numbered . Motorways first came to Britain over three decades after the advent of the A-road numbering event, and as a result required a new numbering system. They were given an M prefix, and in England and Wales a numbering system of their own not coterminous with that of the A-road network, though based on the same principle of zones. Running clockwise from
1026-414: The parallel B4210. In 1991, shortly after the completion of the M40 motorway, the road between Oxford and Solihull was renumbered. Between Chipping Norton and Solihull the road lost its primary route status and was renumbered A3400 , and south of Chipping Norton the route became part of an extended A44 . The A34 was diverted north from the Oxford Ring Road to the M40 along parts of the former routes of
1064-530: The road traffic of the motorway, though the route of the old A33 closed as a result. In 2004, the junction with the M4 motorway was re-engineered from a roundabout to free-flowing grade separated junction . The idea that the cancelled Oxford–Cambridge Expressway (linking the current A34 near Oxford to the A14 near Cambridge) would have been designated as A34, did not have any official status. The original (1922) route of
1102-544: The same numbering scheme as A roads, but almost always have 3- and 4-digit designations. Many 3-digit B roads outside the London area are former A roads which have been downgraded owing to new road construction; others may link smaller settlements to A roads. B roads in the county of Devon have further sub-classifications according to their accessibility. This is due to the rural nature of Devon's topology making some roads unsuitable for certain types of vehicle. The classification
1140-405: The same standard as motorways, but do not completely replace the existing road; they form a higher standard part of the route for those which are not excluded. These sections retain the same number but are suffixed with (M), for example the A1(M) and A404(M) . There have been occasions where this designation has been used to indicate motorway bypasses of an existing road, but the original retains
1178-562: The scheme commenced, some roads with 3 or 4 digit numbers have increased in significance, for example the A127 , A1079 and A414 . New routes have also been allocated 3 or 4 digit numbers, for example the Edinburgh City Bypass is the A720 . The Major Road Network is a proposed classification of major local-authority controlled A roads that the government committed to implementing in 2017, with
B roads in Zone 7 of the Great Britain numbering scheme - Misplaced Pages Continue
1216-463: The section of road forming the Newbury Bypass around Newbury were the scene of significant direct action environmental protests in the 1990s. It is 151 miles (243 km) long. The road is in two sections. The northern section runs south through Manchester and Cheadle , and bypasses Handforth , Wilmslow and Alderley Edge , before passing through Congleton , Newcastle-under-Lyme , and
1254-553: The short M85 became part of the M90 . In England and Wales, the six single-digit numbers reflect the traditionally most important radial routes coming out of London. Starting with the A1 which heads due north, numbers were allocated sequentially in a clockwise direction, thus: Similarly, in Scotland, important roads radiating from Edinburgh have single-digit numbers, thus: While these routes remain
1292-498: The southern suburbs of Stoke-on-Trent . It then continues south via Stone , Stafford , Cannock and Walsall , passes through the middle of Birmingham (where it briefly merges with the A41 ), before meeting the M42 motorway at junction 4 south of Solihull . The northern section of the road in effect combines with the motorway network and then resumes with the southern section. The southern section begins 45 miles (72 km) SSE of
1330-555: The upgrading of other A-roads (such as the A38 (M) ). These routes are not all centred on London, but as far as possible follow the general principle that their number locates them radially clockwise from the associated single digit route. For example, the A10 (London to King's Lynn) is the first main route clockwise from the A1, the A11 (London to Norwich) is the next, then the A12 (London to Lowestoft) and
1368-415: Was created in 1922, under which important routes connecting large population centres, or for through traffic, were designated as Class I, and roads of lesser importance were designated as Class II. The definitive list of those roads was published on 1 April 1923, following consultations with local authorities . Government funding towards the repairs of these roads were set at 60% for the former and 50% for
1406-613: Was decided to reserve the numbers 7, 8 & 9 for Scotland. In Scotland, where roads were the responsibility of the Scottish Office (Scottish Government after 1999), the decision was taken to adopt a scheme whereby motorways took the numbers of the all-purpose routes they replaced. As a result, there is no M7 (as no motorway follows the A7 ), and when the A90 was re-routed to replace the A85 south of Perth ,
1444-673: Was no consistent approach to the renumbering – some A roads retained their existing number as non-primary roads (e.g. the A40 running alongside the M40 ), others were given "less significant" numbers (e.g. the A34 in Warwickshire became the A3400 after the M40 was built), and the remainder were downgraded to B or unclassified roads (e.g. the A38 , which was replaced by the M5 between Tiverton and Exeter ). Occasionally,
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