The North Circular Road (officially the A406 and sometimes known as simply the North Circular) is a 25.7-mile-long (41.4 km) ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting various suburbs and other trunk roads in the region. Together with its counterpart, the South Circular Road, it forms a ring road around central London. This ring road does not make a complete circuit of the city, being C-shaped rather than a complete loop as the crossing of the River Thames in the east is made on the Woolwich Ferry.
The road was originally designed to connect local industrial communities together in addition to bypassing London, and was constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. It received significant upgrades after World War II, and was at one point planned to be upgraded to motorway as part of the controversial and ultimately cancelled London Ringways scheme in the late 1960s. In the early 1990s, the road was extended to bypass Barking and meet the A13 north of Woolwich; the sections south from here to the ferry, in Beckton and North Woolwich, are labelled the A1020 and A117 respectively, instead of A406.
The road's design varies from six-lane dual carriageway to urban streets; the latter, although short, cause traffic congestion in London and are regularly featured on local traffic reports, particularly at Bounds Green. The uncertainty of development has caused urban decay and property blight along its route, and led to criticism over its poor pollution record. Several London Borough Councils have set up regeneration projects to improve the environment for communities close to the North Circular.
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