§ MR. ADAMasked the First Commissioner of "Works, Whether any steps are to be taken to ease the block of traffic at Hyde Park Corner; and, if so, whether he will state what is proposed to be done?
LORD HENRY LENNOXI fear, Sir, that my Answer to the Question of the right hon. Member will be longer than is thought convenient for Ministerial replies. Shortly before I took office, the right hon. Member himself was good enough to explain to me the way in which he would have attempted to relieve the block of traffic at Hyde Park Corner; and, coming from so high a quarter, I gave my very serious consideration to the scheme in question. It proposed to throw the foot pavement in front of the Wellington Arch into the carriage-way, and to construct a foot pavement where the small gardens now are on either side of the archway. The width of the present roadway is 80 feet, and this would have added to it 18 feet, or the width of two line of carriages; but while the already wide thoroughfare was to be thus widened, the narrow channel of Grosvenor Place would have been left as it is, and I feared, therefore, that the addition of these two strings of carriages to the road at Hyde Park Corner would only have aggravated the difficulty. Besides that the gardens in question form part of the Green Park, and I have no right to appropriate them 724 for a public footway. For these reasons, among others, I was unable to adopt the suggestion of the right hon. Member. The evil existing at Hyde Park Corner is very great, but the difficulties in the way of improving matters are equally great. I received several suggestions upon the matter, and after much consideration I was of opinion that the best plan would be to make a road following the line of the present footpath across the Green Park from Hamilton Place, passing under Constitution Hill, and coming out in Grosvenor Place, nearly opposite to Halkin Street. A model was prepared of this; but, from unavoidable circumstances, I was unable to exhibit it until within a few days of the close of the Session. Very few hon. Members, therefore, were enabled to see it; and the Government, in consequence, thought that for that and other reasons, it would be unadvisable to expend the necessary sum of money without having directly obtained the approval and sanction of Parliament. That model, however, with the drawings and inclines, will, by permission of the authorities of the House, be again placed in one of the Committee Rooms, and I shall be grateful if hon. Members will do me the favour of inspecting it, so that when the question is brought on in the House, they may give their opinion as to whether the proposed plan is not the best to remove or palliate an acknowledged and growing evil.