Now I know we’ve been down this road before – sorry but I just had to say that, but together with MIKE DAVIES, Chairman of the Rayleigh Town Museum we revisited the history of the A127 today, because this highway celebrates it’s centenary tomorrow.
Yes the A127 will be 100 years old tomorrow!
Originally the brainchild of the then Prime Minister, Lloyd George to provide work for those just returning home following the ending of the First World War, it was commissioned in 1920 with work commencing on the first 7 miles on the 8th December 1921.
And what’s more when completed, it became the first road in the country designed specifically for motor vehicles.
Unsurprisingly the enterprise attracted opposition from a number of sources, not least from the MP for West Ham, who derided the whole project as misplaced use of money, suggesting that the money should have been used to improve links to Silvertown docks, rather than to a place he described as Southend-on-the-Mud.
But by providing a £100,000 grant, Southend council got in on the act quickly, believing that the investment would not only attract visitors to the town, but also encourage businesses to re-locate to Southend, thereby providing job opportunities.
As the construction costs increased to £1.25m, it turned out to be a pretty good investment, although it took until 1947 before Southend began to see their investment, bearing fruit at which time, work on the area’s first industrial estate at Progress Road commenced.
This would eventually attract companies such as Mercedes Benz, MK Electric and JEGS into the area.
To be strictly accurate there were actually 4 ribbon cutting ceremonies between June and September 1924 but the first official opening ceremony was held on the 25th March 1925, by Prince Henry, later to become Duke of Gloucester. The prince then drove sedately from Wansted to Southend where he was greeted by the then mayor, Mr R Tweedy Smith.
As a direct result of this, part of the road leading into Southend was re-named Prince Avenue.
By this time it was already England’s longest new road built since Roman times, although only the 25 foot wide southern carriageway had been constructed.
To all intents and purposes however it was a fast two lane lethal country lane, notorious for accidents and by early 1927, £200,000 had to be spent on repairs as road sections sank into the Essex mud.
But you have to remember that before the A127 had been opened, travellers from London had had to negotiate a tortuous zig-zag of old rutted unmade roads between Billericay and Wickford, involving no less than 29 changes of direction.
Still by 1935 the single lane carriageway was so congested that motorists did their best to avoid using it.
This finally resulted in funding being granted in 1936 to convert the road into a dual carriageway, the completion of which was achieved during the war, in 1940.
Perhaps less well known is that during the second world war there was a top secret project to lay a pipeline under the central reservation which may have been used to supply fuel to D-Day convoys assembling off Southend pier. The A127 was also used to store vehicles and equipment.
Construction of what until 1997, had been designated a “trunk road”, was far from easy and had to be built largely by hand.
The exception was the section just to the west of Rayleigh Weir which involved the digging of a 34 foot deep chase using steam diggers which removed some 160,000 cubic yards of clay.
Rayleigh Weir itself started out as no more than a road junction in 1925, but with increasing traffic volumes, a roundabout arrived in 1967 to be replaced between 1989 and 1992 by the underpass which is there today.
A heritage plaque was unveiled on the 29th November 2010 close to the entrance of the Rayleigh Weir public house.
You can listen here to all that Mike had to say on this project: –
In the second hour of today’s programme, we revealed the horror experienced by a resident who’s house was stolen from under him.
That in itself is horrendous enough, but in his case it was even worse as he became victim of his house being stolen a second time, all within the space of a couple of years!
The Reverend Mike Hall had purchased his property in Luton back in 1990 but during 2020, whilst he was undertaking some work in Wales, he received a phone call from his neighbours telling him that the lights in his house were on and that someone was apparently at work inside the property.
After the long drive home he found a builders merchant inside the house.
Understandably Mr Hall explained that he owned the house and that the man must leave.
And leave he did, only to return shortly thereafter together with the new owner’s father, who stated that he was now the legal owner of the property and that Mr Hall was trespassing and must leave.
A check with Land Registry clearly showed that ownership of the house had indeed changed, at which point police insisted that as far as they were concerned no fraud had been committed and that as such it had become a civil issue that could be resolved only by solicitors.
Subsequent investigations however revealed that a duplicate driving licence and a fake bank account had been set up in Mr Hall’s name and used to sell the house.
A man from Bedford was subsequently charged and arrested.
After two and a half years of legal battles, Mr Hall was eventually confirmed as the legal owner of the property by Land Registry in 2023.
Both Mr Hall and the people who unwittingly bought the property were awarded damages.
Shortly after this, Mr Hall made arrangements for a builder to refurbish the property, but when he visited the house was surprised to see through windows a TV set operating on the first floor. He then found that the door lock had been forced, the curtains closed and the windows broken.
The trouble was that whilst the court case proceeded the house had been left vulnerable and squatters had moved in.
Although squatting had been classified as a criminal offence since 2012, if a landlord fails to file an interim possession order, police are unable to intervene.
So when the police visited the property to assess the situation, the inhabitants claimed that they were legally renting the house.
Clearly, neither Mr Hall nor the temporary owner could have signed such an agreement.
To make matters worse, no insurance company will be willing to insure the property whilst squatters are in possession.
In this case however the occupiers of the house, a Romanian woman and child had been issued with a bogus rental contract. So 18 months ago police told the couple to stop paying the rent, which in any event was not going to Mr Hall.
Finally just last last month a court in Luton, granted Mr Hall outright possession of the house, the ruling to become effective within 14 days.
What a nightmare!
A valuable lesson here – for starters, make sure you are signed up to the Land Registry Property Alert service.
Well after that horror, I very much hope you will be able to join me once again tomorrow,
Scott
