A HERITAGE trail explaining Edgware’s role in advances in aviation is the ‘icing on the cake’ of a shopping parade’s £1.5 million facelift.

Pupils at Stag Lane Infant and Nursery School and neighbouring Stag Lane Junior School, both in Collier Drive, Edgware, joined guests to cut a ribbon on Thursday to mark the end of 18 months of works to improve Mollison Way.

Theestate was built on the former de Havilland aerospace factory and the road is named after test pilot Jim Mollison, husband of pilot Amy Johnson, who learned to fly at the forerunning flying school and went on to break several long distance aviation records in the 1930s including becoming the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia.

The heritagetrail series of six boards was the idea of Steve Pollard, site supervisor at the Stag Lane schools, who produced them based on information supplied by Stuart McKay, general secretary of The de Havilland Moth Club.

MrPollard said: “We hosted the stakeholder meetings from the start about a year-and-a-half ago and I became interested with looking into the history of it.

“I thought it was the great opportunity to have a history plaque as nobody seemed to know much about it.

“It’swhere de Havilland had his first flight, where the first Gipsy Moths and Tiger Moths were built, and Amy Johnson learned to fly, and where she met and married Jim Mollison, whom the road is named after.”

Whereshoppers nowadays pop in for a coffee, a newspaper or a bet was farmland in 1916 when part of Burnt Oak Farm was sold to the London and Provincial Aviation Company to found a flying school.

Fouryears later, it was acquired by de Havilland as a research and development and manufacturing plant prior to the firm’s relocation to a more spacious site in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, in 1933 although the company retained a small presence on the site.

Motifsof aerospace engineering feature on a series of tiles painted by the schoolchildren from Stag Lane schools that have been embedded in bollards on the new communal spaces.

Admiringthem was Mollison Way visitor Bruce Bosher, 82, of Flaunden, Hertfordshire, who was an apprentice helping to design and build aircraft and spent a short time in Edgware.

Mr Bosher said: “The factory was the noisiest place on earth, especially with all the engines running.

“Theysay Mollison Way was a runway, but in fact it was a grass airfield with the direction of take-off depending on which way the wind was blowing.

“I think this heritage trail is a very good effort.”

Theman cutting the ribbon and leading a tour of the information boards was Bob Plowden, head of surface transport for Transport for London (TfL), which supplied the cash for the project.

MrPlowden said: “What a fantastic scheme. This is a good example of how investment can help local communities improve, in terms of environment and safety.”

CouncillorPhillip O’Dell (Labour), portfolio for the environment and community safety, said: “The works we have done are the conversion of the two roundabouts at either end of Mollison Way parade into community spaces. This was done to ease the passage of buses coming through.

“We have introduced safe crossing points for the community and the other important thing the installation of two CCTV cameras.

“This all started with a petition by local residents who wanted a 20mph speed limit in the area, which we did in Collier Drive.”

Parkingon the main Mollison Way thoroughfare, which is flanked by a service road in either direction, has been eliminated to ease the flow of traffic, particularly buses, while pedestrians benefit from the two new pelican crossings.

Mr O’Dell said: “The whole scheme was something like £1.5 million. Extra funding
wasavailable late on from TfL and we said ‘we’ve got an idea for that surplus money’ and the heritage trail is the icing on the cake.”

Thecouncillor said future TfL money could be used to address on-street parking problems along the rest of Mollison Way up to Turner Road in one direction and Stag Lane in the other.