'Planning': "Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain." (Does that mean this is about Brian Reynolds's unsustainable carbuncle on the North Circular Road?)

Link to web site

"BBC4 continues its work to single-handedly justify the license fee with a new series on great British building projects that never were. The three-part series, 'Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain', starts on Monday 12 August at 9pm with an episode titled 'Glass Houses'.

"According to the BBC, the programme will look at projects including designer Sir Joseph Paxton’s 1855 [not 1885] proposal to build a 'fantastic, futuristic ten-mile glass girdle'."

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IanVisits: "Victorian plans to encircle London with a Crystalline Railway"

Link to web site

"Its primary function was to relieve the congestion of the roads, the railway was but a small part of the proposed structure which would have included shops, housing and a private road running alongside the railways.

"Sir Joe claimed to have the support of Prince Albert for his Girdle around London, but Parliament was not impressed. The Daily Telegraph was not entirely convinced either: 'We must protest against being disturbed in our slumbers by a whistle and a roar overhead'."

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BBC4 web site:

"Using her investigative skills to uncover long-forgotten and abandoned plans, architectural investigator Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner explores the fascinating and dramatic stories behind some of the grandest designs that were never built.

"Technology has always been a driving force behind new ideas. Olivia explores how architects and designers have been inspired by the exciting possibilities presented by new technology to produce groundbreaking and controversial urban plans.

"In 1855, visionary designer Sir Joseph Paxton proposed an ambitious plan to build a fantastic, futuristic ten-mile glass girdle circling the centre of London. It had only recently become possible to produce large sheets of cheap but strong plate glass and Paxton was inspired by its potential. With this exciting new technology at his fingertips, Paxton believed he could create a bright and pollution-free environment for Londoners as well as solve the capital's terrible congestion problems. 

"His spectacular glass 'Great Victorian Way' would connect the city to the West End, link rich and poor areas and cross the Thames three times. Contained in this magnificent glass structure were shops, houses, hotels, a pedestrian walkway, a road for carriages and eight lines of elevated pneumatic railway. 

"There was huge support for Paxton's scheme and Parliament passed a bill sanctioning construction, but the Great Victorian Way was never built. The 'Great Stink' took hold of London in 1858, spreading a cholera epidemic and so sanitation became the city's most pressing priority. Instead of creating a spectacular crystal boulevard the money was spent on a very different type of technology - the building of London's sewerage system.

"A century later, London's congestion problems remained unsolved with the motor car having taken over roads designed for horse and carriage. In 1961, the architect Geoffrey Jellicoe proposed a solution directly inspired by Joseph Paxton's use of glass, in his radical new urban scheme for the green belt around London. Jellicoe took Paxton's idea of transforming the transport infrastructure even further, proposing a 'glass city' in which all cars would drive along rooftops, freeing the ground below for pedestrians.

"With both these groundbreaking designs, Paxton and Jellicoe were seeking to harness technology to create bright and light cities, free of pollution and congestion, and utilising the most progressive forms of transport of the day."

Contributors include: Brett Steele, Eric Kuhne, Kate Colquhoun, Isobel Armstrong, Theodora Wayte, Lord Norman Foster, Charlie Burke, David Martlew, John Minnis, Hal Moggridge, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe and Kathryn Moore. [Presumably Hammerson was asked, but declined.]