Transport Insights

I very much agree with ‪Transport Action Network‬’s (TAN) good news, bad news take on the National Audit Office saying that it will be taking a look at the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC)…eventually.

On Bluesky, TAN says:

Good news- We’ve received a response from the NAO and they will be auditing the Lower Thames Crossing project!

Bad news- we do not have a start date! Meanwhile public money is being thrown at this damaging road scheme.

If you look at the latest letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General, Gareth Davies, he only says the NAO will look into the scheme at some point in the future, and not because it sees any particular issue with it:

The Lower Thames Crossing is a significant programme and is of high parliamentary and public interest. I anticipate that I will examine and report on the Lower Thames Crossing. My teams are tracking activity on the programme. This will inform my decision on the right timing for audit work.

But there are big problems. The main one, as TAN points out, is that the government has committed £3.1bn of public money to a scheme that has no business case.

Not only is the full business case not due until 2028, but the Department for Transport (DfT) is claiming that the outline business case is only in draft form. The NAO has said that decisions to commit public money were based on this document.

And the DfT is planning to give the developer of the allegedly privately-funded project an additional income stream with the revenue from the existing Dartford Crossings.

In the circumstances, the NAO looks very complacent. Let’s hope they don’t regret it or – perhaps worse – box themselves into a space where they have to pretend it’s all fine because to admit that it is a shitshow will be to point the finger at themselves.