Look back at Angerstein

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter October 2026

Could the sprawling Angerstein Roundabout in SE London be replaced with a more compact junction, with all the local benefits that would bring?

John Julius Angerstein (1732-1823) was the son of a Russian empress, born in St Petersburg, he came to this country at the age of 15, became a Lloyds underwriter and art collector. He amassed wealth linked to the transatlantic slave economy: the National Gallery now acknowledges this and his role in the founding of its collection.

Angerstein gave his name to a Thames wharf, to the freight railway branch which serves it, to a hotel and to an infamous SE London accident black spot: the Angerstein Roundabout, which lies at the junction of the A206 Woolwich Road and the A102 Blackwell Tunnel southern approach. The A102 now also forms the Silvertown Tunnel southern approach.

Through traffic along the A102 (including Superloop route SL4 introduced with the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel) uses the Angerstein Flyover, while the roundabout serves the A206, Horn Lane, Peartree Way and four slip roads to/from the A102: one of them incorporates a bus gate, providing a short-cut from Westcombe Hill onto the roundabout.

Eight bus routes operate through Angerstein Roundabout, but it is a dreadful place for interchange as its size dictates long walking distances between the relevant bus 

 stops. All eight bus routes would benefit from less general traffic, a more land-efficient junction, more bus priority and easier interchange for passengers.

The Angerstein Roundabout is at the extreme large end of the scale occupying 4–6 hectares (40,000–60,000 m²), once all the connecting roads, slip roads and traffic islands are included (the exact figure depends on where one draws the boundary line). That is roughly the equivalent of 6–8 football pitches, making it far larger than a conventional urban roundabout.

Following multiple cyclist fatalities between 2009 and 2019, TfL modified the roundabout to provide signal-controlled pedestrian phases and a segregated route for cyclists through it: work is still underway to provide Cycleway 4, a continuous segregated two-way route from Tower Bridge via Angerstein junction to Woolwich. 

Elsewhere in London, more compact, signal-controlled junctions, causing much less severance and enabling better facilities for bus passengers, cyclists and pedestrians as well as more room for landscaping and development have replaced: Highbury Corner roundabout, Old Street Roundabout, Elephant & Castle Northern Roundabout, Archway Gyratory, Aldgate Gyratory, Whipps Cross Roundabout and the Lewisham Town Centre roundabout.

To do similar at Angerstein Roundabout would, apparently, require significant traffic reduction (it accommodates heavy freight traffic serving the nearby industrial area) and a lot of money.

In connection with its Healthy Streets programme, TfL held a public consultation in 2020 to replace the Angerstein Roundabout with a more compact design: both the northbound on slip road onto the A102 and the southbound off slip road from the A102 could have been closed to all except emergency vehicles, thus reducing traffic at the junction.

Bus stops could have been relocated closer to the junction, enabling easier interchange.

In October 2022, after reviewing consultation responses and facing financial constraints following the pandemic, TfL announced that it had:

‘…decided not to proceed with the transformational Angerstein roundabout scheme at this time’.

That means the major reconstruction was deferred rather than cancelled permanently. There is local public support for removing the roundabout and it is Greenwich Council policy.

While there is no current TfL budget to abolish the Angerstein Roundabout, Rashmee Roshan Lall, FTL’s latest recruit, now tells us what she is hoping to achieve there in the short term.                                                                                

Neil Roth