HC Deb 20 February 1905 vol 141 cc603-4
MR. GIBSON BOWLES

I beg to ask the hon. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, can he explain the object of the extensive works of excavation drainage, extending over a width of sixty feet, and bearing the appearance of the making of a broad roadway across the Green Park from the Victoria Memorial to Half Moon Street, Piccadilly. Is it intended to make a road, and, if so, what will be its extreme width, what its cost, and what its purpose; has the advice, either of the London County Council, or of any other public body, been asked for or received on the subject? Is this the same road as to which an official statement was authorised and published in November, 1903, that there was no foundation for the report that it is proposed to make a new roadway across the Green Park, and that no such scheme has ever been contemplated. And, in view of the injurious effect on the Green Park and the disfigurement of running a public road across it, and thus cutting into two the smallest of the Parks, will the scheme now being carried out be reconsidered.

LORD BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley)

A path, sixty-five feet wide, is being made from the Victoria Memorial to Piccadilly; it will have a grass border of fifteen feet on either side, and will be planted on either side with a double

County. Name of Deer Forest. Assessment. Acrcage, 1883. Acrcage, 1891 Acrcage, 1898. Acrcage, 1904. Increage, Decreage,

avenue of trees. It is not intended to make a road either now or in the future.

In answer to a further Question by Mr. GIBSON BOWLES, Lord BALCAREES said the amount of the grass which would disappear was represented by the breadth of the pathway, sixty-five feet, multiplied by its length, some 200 yards.

MR. C. R. SPENCER (Northamptonshire, Mid.)

Are we to understand that there will never be a road across the Green Park?

LOKD BALCARRES

Not in the sense of a public road along which wheeled traffic will be allowed to go.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES

What is the object of the foundation of two or three feet of broken brick?

LORD BALCARRES

I understand it is mainly for drainage purposes.