MEDIA COVERAGE

The Times:

Doctors liken a blocked artery to a tunnel clogged with traffic. Each day, 150,000 drivers approach the Dartford crossing, spanning the Thames between Essex and Kent, with a similar sense of foreboding.

For the past 60 years, it has been the only route across the Thames to the east of London, linking the Channel ports with the Midlands and the North. Despite the addition of a second tunnel and then the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, it cannot cope.

Demand has risen from two million crossings a year in 1963 to 50 million now. Every day, the official capacity of 135,000 is exceeded by an average of 15,000 vehicles, sometimes by 45,000.

By Friday, the government must decide whether to grant planning approval for the Lower Thames Crossing, a £9 billion scheme to relieve the pressure on the Dartford crossing by building the country’s longest road tunnels under the River Thames, more than six miles downstream. The decision will be made by Louise Haigh, the transport secretary.

National Highways, which manages and improves England’s motorways and major A roads, has said the health of the country’s economy depends on it. In a joint presentation with Logistics UK, a trade body, it claimed congestion at Dartford costs the economy more than £200 million a year, with goods vehicles stuck in traffic, and a reliable new connection would provide a boost of “up to £40 billion”. If approved now, it could open for traffic between 2030 and 2032.

Tony Travers, a transport expert and director of LSE London, acknowledges the crossing will spark environmental objections, and concerns about the failure to invest in rail freight, but said it would undoubtedly “generate short term economic activity and greater transport capacity in the long term”.

He added: “To kill it now would send out a very powerful negative signal about the government’s ability to face down opposition.”

Sir John Armitt, chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, told parliamentarians earlier this year that it was “blindingly obvious” that the scheme should go ahead. On September 12, Asda, Morrisons and Stansted airport were among 73 business and trade associations who signed a letter to Haigh urging her to approve it.

The pressure group Transport Action Network (TAN), which campaigns for sustainable transport and mounted a series of legal challenges against the previous Conservative government’s road building programme, opposes it.

Chris Todd and Becca Lush of TAN argue that Labour may come to regret approving what they argue is a poorly thought-out scheme which will cost more than declared and lock in Britain’s dependency on road transport. “There is huge pressure to sort out the traffic at Dartford, while Starmer has promised to be a builder not a blocker. The easy way out would be to approve it,” they said in a statement.

Every 15 minutes, northbound traffic from Britain’s busiest motorway, the M25, is halted at the southern entrance to the Dartford crossing to make way for a convoy of fuel tankers and hazardous loads bound for Essex.

The left-hand tunnel only has headroom of 4.8 metres, and the right-hand one 5 metres, so hazardous loads must be escorted. Tall vehicles which are higher than 5 metres and those carrying hazardous goods which slip the net must be detected, stopped and turned around.

It is a formula for disruption and delay, despite the efforts of a National Highways staff of 300 who are employed to keep the traffic moving. In the evening rush hour, National Highways says 19 out of 20 northbound journeys are delayed and two-thirds take twice as long as they should.

Traffic restrictions are imposed on the Queen Elizabeth II bridge in high winds. It is closed to all vehicles if crosswinds reach 60 mph and headwinds 70 mph.

One Conservative MP told the Commons: “It only needs the wind to blow a bit too hard or the wrong sort of vehicle to turn up and we end up with serious and catastrophic congestion.” In 2018 the congestion was so bad after a crash that the IKEA furniture store in Thurrock, Essex, allowed 200 people to sleep in its beds and on its sofas.

It was more than seven years ago that the route for the Lower Thames Crossing was announced. Since then, the cost has rocketed from around £5.3 billion to £9 billion. Under the plans devised by National Highways, a road of 14.3 miles will link the A2 in Kent with the A13 and M25 in Essex, through the longest road tunnels (2.6 miles) in the UK. The project is intended to reduce the number of vehicles using the Dartford crossing by 13 million a year.

So far the government has spent more than £800 million on the project, including £294 million on the planning application, with a further £369 million on technical surveys and £117 million on purchasing land.

The planning application now sprawls over 360,000 pages, according to Britain Remade, a pressure group which campaigns for economic growth, although TAN says the true figure is one sixth of that. Sam Richards, its campaign director, said: “It’s simply far too difficult and takes far too long to get anything built in this country.”

However, much of this reflects the realities of winning consent from people affected by a massively disruptive infrastructure project in a crowded country.

National Highways has promised to keep traffic noise down by ensuring that 80 per cent of the route will be below ground level in a tunnel, cutting or embankment. It has also pledged to create two new public parks, near Gravesend and Thurrock, and last week began work on a new community woodland near Brentwood. It is planting a million trees and constructing seven green bridges to provide crossings for people and wildlife.

Even if Haigh gives planning approval, this will not be the end of the story: the next challenge will be how to pay for it. It has been reported that Rachel Reeves is considering funding it through private investment, with investors recouping their costs from tolls.

This may be smart politics by the chancellor, because it will reduce the burden to the taxpayer and it is easier to persuade the public to pay to usesomething new than to pay for an existing utility. But it could lead to a fresh cycle of delays.

Leigh Day, acting for TAN, wrote to Haigh on Thursday to warn her that if the government turned to private finance, this would invalidate the assessments put forward by National Highways. It warned: “TAN does not know whether the secretary of state is minded to grant development consent, but she would not lawfully be able to do so if the funding position were to change.”

The saga may still have some way to run.