The fate of Britain’s biggest road scheme hangs in the balance after ministers delayed giving it the go ahead – despite over £800m being spent on it to date.
The government said it needed more time to consider whether to grant a development order for The Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), including reviewing its cost.
The 14 mile project was first proposed in 2009, and would connect Kent and Essex through a road and tunnel beneath the River Thames to reduce congestion.
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Campaigners have reacted angrily to the news, saying more money has already been spent on seeking permission for it than what it cost to actually build the world’s longest road tunnel in Norway.
National Highways revealed in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request earlier this year that £295m has been spent on the application process for the LTC. Overall spending, including technical surveys and land purchasing costs, has surpassed £800m – all before a spade has hit the ground.
As pointed out by pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade, the planning fee alone is more than twice the cost it took Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
The Laerdal tunnel, connecting Oslo and Bergen, only cost £140m, adjusted for inflation, the thinktank’s head of policy Sam Dumitriu said.
He told Sky News he was “disappointed” by the government’s decision not to greenlight the LTC, adding: “I think more than anything else it shows that our planning system is fundamentally broken.
“This is the most scrutinised planning application in history and yet still we can’t get a decision on whether the project should get permission.”
A view of the River Thames from Gravesend, at the proposed Lower Thames Crossing. Pic: PA
Planning application ‘five times long as the road itself’
Britain Remade has previously revealed how National Highways has had to produce 359,866 pages across 2,383 separate documents in the application process, including redrafts and resubmissions.
Laid end to end it would stretch 66 miles, almost five times as long as the road itself.
Mr Dumitriu said the latest setback “speaks to a wider problem with our planning system”.
He said: “Projects go through enormous hurdles, every single I dotted, T crossed, countless environmental studies, analyses, surveys, 360,000 pages overall and yet still even after all of that work and money spent, projects can still get delayed because a minister has decided to kick it into the long grass.”
The initial deadline for a decision on whether to grant a development consent order enabling National Highways to build the road was scheduled for 20 June, but was delayed because of the general election.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh was then due to sign it off by last Friday, after receiving the planning inspectors’ recommendation three months ago.
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But in a written statement to parliament this week, she said it was “necessary” to extend the deadline for a decision to May next year to give the new government more time for the application to be considered.
She said that included “any decisions made as part of the spending review” .
The cabinet minister later told LBC that she had to “have confidence that the funding will be made available”, and that she believed the overall costs of the project have hit £1bn.
She said that figure was “shocking” and her government wants to “radically change the way our planning and infrastructure works”.
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If approved, the LTC is expected to cost £9bn and take six years to build – but delays could make that even more expensive due to cost pressures like inflation, Mr Dumitriu said.
While it is a complex project, research from Britain Remade has found we are spending up to eight times more on rail and road projects than our European neighbours because of mountains of red tape and “nimby opposition”.
Thurrock Council in Essex has consistently opposed the LTC, citing negative economic, social and environmental impacts, though the leader of Kent’s Dartford Borough Council is in favour of the scheme.
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Local campaigners Thames Crossing Action Group claims the crossing would be “hugely destructive and harmful”, and a waste of money.
National Highways says the LTC is needed to ease congestion on the notoriously busy Dartford Crossing, which in itself is costing the UK economy £200m a year in sitting traffic, and that the scheme would double road capacity across the Thames east of London.