PRESS RELEASE

Northern tour an attempt to distract from Lower Thames Crossing costs

Transport Action Network’s (TAN’s) statement about the Prime Minister’s and Chancellor’s visit to the north today mostly recycling previous funding announcements [1]. This appears to be an attempt to distract from the billions of pounds of public funding that will be needed for the Lower Thames Crossing in the south east [2].

Chris Todd Director of TAN, said:

“This sudden rush to the North smacks of a certain amount of panic by Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. After approving yet another multi-billion pound investment in the South East in the form of the Lower Thames Crossing, they are keen to reassure northern voters they haven’t been forgotten. Yet all we’ve heard are a load of recycled announcements and very little new money.

“Ms Reeves and Sir Keir need to come clean about the true costs of the Lower Thames Crossing which are likely to be around £16bn. Even with private finance there would be a minimum public cost of around £6bn, while a PFI style arrangement would be even worse. To fund this they are going to have to take money from the regions – including the North – to pay for their white elephant.

“What’s worse, the LTC barely washes its face economically, despite Conservative MP Richard Holden’s claims last night on BBC Question Time that, for every pound spent on it, the LTC will return £2 of benefits [4]. The LTC is in fact an incredibly poor deal for the taxpayer. Put simply, if we invested the money from the LTC into road maintenance we would gain seven times the economic benefits. Now that would be worth shouting about.”

– ENDS –

Notes to editors:

[1] Government Press Release, Friday, 28 March: PM: North will no longer be held to ransom by broken transport system

[2] The true cost of the Lower Thames Crossing depends on which funding model is chosen, but the minimum it is likely to cost the public purse is £6bn and that’s for the private toll charging entity up to over £17bn for a PFI arrangement. See the notes in TAN’s briefing: How the LTC will take your funding and for other information on the LTC see TAN’s website

[3] The National Audit Office’s report: The condition and maintenance of local roads in England, 23 July 2024, highlights that the DfT’s 2020 estimate of the benefit-to-cost ratio of local road maintenance was 7:1 (significantly higher than new road schemes)

The backlog in local roads maintenance (not including the Strategic Roads Network) is £16.81bn as found in the 2025 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey, carried out by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA). On top of this there is a backlog of around £7bn in local bridge maintenance which is not being addressed here.

[4] Yesterday’s edition of BBC’s Question Time was held in Dartford and the Lower Thames Crossing was discussed. In the debate Richard Holden made this claim about the costs and benefits of the LTC, a figure not supported by any evidence. From figures presented to the DCO public examination, the LTC’s Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) was only 0.48, with an adjusted BCR of 1.22. Figures from Table 7.17, Lower Thames Crossing 7.7 Combined Modelling and Appraisal Report, October 2022

However, since that time costs are likely to have risen significantly so the ratio will be nearer or less than 1, i.e. represent poor value for money.