History
See also: Twyford DownOriginally conceived as the 'London to Basingstoke Motorway', the road was built to relieve traffic on the A30 and A33, the congested single carriageway trunk roads that previously carried the traffic.
The first section, from Sunbury-on-Thames in Surrey to Popham near Basingstoke opened between in sections, first the Hampshire section in 1971 and then the Surrey section in 1974 at a cost of £46m and by 1987 the A33 road from Popham to the eastern end of the Winchester Bypass was being widened to dual carriageway.
The first public inquiry for the 'M3 London to Basingstoke Motorway: Popham to Compton' extension of the motorway which include the section past Winchester was held in 1971.
A second public inquiry into the extension was held in 1976-7. The earlier decision to route the motorway through or alongside the water meadows between St Catherine’s Hill was reopened and during the year-long inquiry the Headmaster of Winchester College was forcibly ejected along with others for causing a disturbance.
The scope of the extension was reduced to defer the difficult decision about the section around Winchester and it was built in two sections (from 'Popham to Bridget's Farm' and from 'Bridget's Farm to Bar End') in 1985. When it was opened the temporary junction to the A33 was removed.
The section from near Junction 12 (Eastleigh and Chandler's Ford) to the M27 motorway (Junction 4) followed the route of the A33 road which was upgraded to motorway standard and opened in 1991.
An additional junction, numbered 4a, opened in April 1992 near Farnborough
This left the unresolved issue of the route of the final section past Winchester. A tunnel design was proposed, but rejected. The final route, though Twyford Down resulted in major road protests between 1991 and 1995 when the final section of the motorway was finally opened. A service station was planned at Basingstoke upon the motorway's completion, but this was never built.
On opening the extension of the old Winchester Bypass, which had been constructed in the 1930s, was closed and reverted to rich grassland.
By 2008 the busiest section (at Chandler's Ford) carried a daily average of around 130,000 vehicles.
Read more about this topic: M3 Motorway (Great Britain)
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