Transport Insights

The transport stories you won't see in the industry-friendly media

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: lower-thames-crossing

  • You’ve let the King down…

    I’m still awaiting a response from the Department for Transport as to whether it is still sold on the privatisation model for the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), which delay may itself be significant, but in the meantime I have noticed something that brings the delay to the required legislation into sharper focus.

    Although inclusion on a King’s Speech doesn’t guarantee that a bill will be in the next session of Parliament, a letter in May from transport secretary Heidi Alexander to Transport Committee chair Ruth Cadbury explicitly said this one would be.

    Setting out “the Department for Transport’s legislative agenda for the second Parliamentary session, as set out in the King’s Speech”, Alexander wrote:

    The department will also be introducing two new pieces of legislation in the next session.

    […]

    Furthermore, our Highways (Financing) Bill will enable a new financing approach to fund large-scale road schemes, supporting the UK Government’s commitment to deliver a modern transport network that helps people get where they need more easily and safely.

    So when Lord (Peter) Hendy can only say that the Bill

    will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows

    that’s a significant backtracking, suggesting either incompetence or a rethink.

    Meanwhile, an “independent” review of the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) looks at the expectation that it will be the regulator for the entity that will build and operate the LTC.

    (more…)

  • Has Thames tunnel plan stalled under Burnham?

    As the question of whether the case for the £10bn Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) has been properly made continues to rumble on, the possibility arises that the project may have stalled under a new prime minister who has committed giving people “ownership and control”.

    Firstly, I have had a response from the Department for Transport (DfT) to my request for an explanation as to how the outline business case (OBC) can be “in draft” despite the document having been approved nearly a year ago as the basis for a decision to commit a large chunk of public money.

    The DfT seems to be sticking to its line – the basis for its refusal to disclose the document – without actually saying that the OBC is still in draft. It is full of fudges:

    the next iteration of the business case

    The business case remains a draft working document

    was not the finalised outline business case

    this project remains at Outline Business Case stage

    None of this states that the OBC is in draft (or was in draft at the time Rebecca Lush of Transport Action Network asked to see it).

    For good measure, the DfT says that publishing an unspecified draft document now:

    could present an incomplete or misleading position, including material still subject to validation, decisions and sensitivities linked to future procurement and investment activity

    So if this is the document that went to the department’s investment committee last October, a decision to increase public spending to £3.1bn was taken on the basis of “material still subject to validation”.

    The DfT must know that it can’t have it both ways on this.

    Meanwhile, (more…)

  • A triumph of sloganeering

    Alongside the news that the Department for Transport (DfT) has resorted to gaslighting to hide the outline business case for the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), a new article in an academic journal tells the same story – that the case for the £10bn+ project is largely confected – in a different way.

    A paper in Transport Policy by UCL professor Robin Hickman (and others) Discourses on the Lower Thames Crossing: rationality or rationalisation?:

    examines the Lower Thames Crossing in discursive terms, seeking to understand the multiple socially-constructed realities associated with the project.

    Here “discursive” means an approach that looks at a policy as a product of discourse – something created by language, narratives and social meaning, and in this case

    specifically the dominance of the views and evidence given by National Highways as the project promoter.

    Foucauldian discourse analysis, as used here:

    allows projects to be understood beyond their supposedly ‘objective’ justification, to incorporate elements of subjectivity. This concerns how particular ways of thinking, talking and doing make projects appear to be rational, necessary and legitimate.

    This Foucauldian stuff is way too clever for me, but the article very much strikes a chord when it talks about how transport policy, including under Labour, is mainly sloganeering:

    For example, narratives are given that “traffic delays stifle progress”, “motorways and trunk roads are the economic arteries of our country”, “highway investment will resolve congestion” and “kickstart economic growth” (Department for Transport, 2025a, p.4). The planning system is even put forward as blocking project delivery, requiring more ‘efficient’ project implementation (HM Treasury, 2025).

    (more…)

  • DfT accused of “state-sponsored gaslighting” over Thames tunnel

    The government seems to have dug itself into a very big hole in an attempt to bury the outline business case (OBC) for the Lower Thames Crossing, a document that was the basis for a decision to take total public funding for the “privately-funded” tunnel to £3.1bn.

    As I reported last month:

    A new report from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) has shown how the Department for Transport is playing fast and loose with public money over the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) – and basically lying to avoid releasing the mega-project’s business case.

    This relates to a Freedom of Information/Environmental Information Regulations request for the OBC from Becca Lush of Transport Action network, which the DfT refused on the grounds that the document was “in draft”.

    Lush had already sought an internal review of this claim when I pointed out that:

    (more…)

  • Schrödinger’s road scheme, Schrödinger’s business case

    A new report from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) has shown how the Department for Transport is playing fast and loose with public money over the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) – and basically lying to avoid releasing the mega-project’s business case.

    Highways magazine reports that, in terms of NISTA’s Delivery Confidence Assessment in its Annual Report 2025/2026:

    None of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) highways projects were rated red; however, the £10bn Lower Thames Crossing and the £1.5bn A66 Northern Trans-Pennine scheme did slip into amber.

    But, as Highways notes, the LTC’s Senior Responsible Owner (the DfT’s Kate Cohen) decided that the project should be bumped up to a green rating.

    Her commentary on its DCA states:

    Compared to financial year 24/25 Q4, the SRO Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) rating at 25/26 Q4 improved from Amber to Green.
    […]
    The NISTA DCA rating for 25/26 Q4 is Amber, whilst we recognise that there are still risks to delivery, the SRO is content that sufficient mitigations were in place as of March-26 and therefore rated the DCA as Green. The project DCA is reviewed monthly. The Outline Business Case was updated and approved by the DfT Investment Committee in October 2025. This marks the transition from full public sector funding to a future private sector RAB model, with the private sector to deliver the remainder of the scheme and take on Dartford Crossing operations in 2028.

    The statement that the private sector operator will take on Dartford Crossing operations – and revenue – in 2028, as it starts construction, is the first time that this has been stated explicitly.

    It means that the state will be putting in (even more) public funding from the outset, again giving the lie to the claim that this is privately financed.

    And this also (again) gives the lie to the DfT’s claim that outline business case that it has refused to release is in “draft form”.

    (more…)

  • NAO slow to wake up to Thames tunnel risks

    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.

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  • Tunnel spared from deadly cuts

    With the fallout from the shelving of two National Highways road schemes continuing, the BBC’s reporting has reflected to some extent the fact that not everyone thinks new roads are a good idea, although thankfully the Lower Thames Crossing has been spared!

    In the midlands, the BBC asks a question that presumes that new roads are a good idea:

    Is the East Midlands being neglected again with scrapped road schemes?

    The article focuses on regional mayor Claire Ward, who is still cross:

    Ward felt she’d been making progress on behalf of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, securing, for example, £2bn of funding for local transport projects in last year’s Spending Review.

    So what has gone wrong?

    So far we have “neglected” and “wrong” but if you can read past what fascist reform thinks there are at least alternative voices:

    The road schemes are not universally popular, either, and local campaign groups have long argued against them on environmental grounds.

    Paul Smith, who chairs the parish council in the village of Winthorpe, near the A46 Newark bypass, says “a lot of people are relieved”.

    And the article links to an earlier article with Derby City Council leader Nadine Peatfield questioning the case for if the “recently shelved A38 scheme” in the city, and comment from Adrian Howlett, from the Stop the A38 expansion group:

    Howlett said the group was “disappointed” that there had been no announcement that other options would be explored, and described the current scheme as “completely outdated”.

    He added: “Let’s actually get some investment into Derby that isn’t just a massive roads-dependent scheme and actually looks at all the options.”

    Which is a reminder that the shelving of the two schemes is not the government seeing sense, just cutting transport investment.

    (more…)

  • Back of an envelope?

    The question of why ministers are putting billions of pounds of our money into the “privately-funded” Lower Thames Crossing two years before a full business case has become even curiouser with the Department for Transport (DfT) insisting that the scheme does not even have a completed outline business case (OBC).

    The DfT has turned down a request from Transport Action Network’s (TAN) Becca Lush for the OBC to be disclosed under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) on the grounds (inter alia) that:

    this information is draft and the outline business case has not been finalised

    This is quite a surprise, given that Lush quoted the National Audit Office (NAO) as telling TAN

    At outline business case stage, the decision to commit further public funding to the project and to proceed with government’s preferred financial model for the project was subject to departmental and ministerial approvals by DfT and HM Treasury.

    Interestingly, the DfT’s refusal letter acknowledges that:

    (more…)

  • Private LTC is a bottomless pit of public funding

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has admitted giving the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) another £174m of public money, despite claims that the allocation in the Autumn Budget was the last, bringing total public funding for the privately funded scheme to £3.1bn.

    The Guardian reports:

    The £174m of extra cash will be used to fund public works on both sides of the tunnel and will be found from existing budgets, the Department for Transport (DfT) said.

    The extra funding was spotted by Transport Action Network (TAN), which noted the gap between the £1.48bn announced up to and including the Autumn Budget and the £1.66bn in the (March) Road Investment Strategy.

    The DfT also told the Guardian:

    We have committed £3.1bn to the Lower Thames Crossing to date, including £891m to complete the publicly funded works needed to unlock private investment.

    This is around £100m more than the previously estimated £3bn, which includes around £1.5bn already spent. It’s subject to rounding and was probably a bit under £3bn and is now a bit over £3.1bn.

    Becca Lush of TAN told the Guardian:

    (more…)

  • DfT blind to sunk costs risks of Thames tunnel

    If you want a definition of hubris, look no further than what the Department for Transport (DfT) and ministers are saying about the risk that the billions being put into the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) will be wasted.

    In one of the Debrief Drop In Sessions that took place just after the Road Investment Strategy was released in March, a wholly understandable question was:

    If £1,655m is being spent on preparatory works for the Lower Thames Crossing before any private sector delivery agreement is in place, is there a risk that this money could be wasted?

    This is actually part of a total of around £3bn of public money put in so far, in advance of a form of private finance that is a long way from being put in place.

    The DfT’s response is typical of its current lines about the issue:

    The Government remains committed to delivering the Lower Thames Crossing, the most significant road investment project in a generation, and to securing private sector involvement to support its construction and operation. The £1,655m included in RIS3 represents Government funding for the essential preparatory and enabling works required before the scheme transfers to a regulated private sector entity. This includes activities such as procurement, all of which are necessary to progress the project and would be required irrespective of the precise timing of any private sector transaction.

    So far, we have an assertion of commitment, a bit of PR spin, and an explanation of where the money is going. The issue of whether it might not happen at all is simply ignored.

    The answer continued:

    The project is expected to be delivered using a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model, under which responsibility for construction and long term operation would pass to the private sector part way through the third road period. As part of this approach, there is an expectation that the private sector will reimburse the taxpayer for some of the costs incurred ahead of the transfer, helping to reduce the overall burden on the public finances. The total spend by Government will depend on the final timing and terms of the transaction, which are still being developed, with the current expectation that the project will transfer in 2028.

    This again ignores the possibility that the project might not go ahead at all, acknowledging uncertainty only over the extent to which the public money put in might be recouped if it does.

    But there are known and acknowledged material risks for a scheme costing well over £10bn that will not have a full business case until 2028, for which there is no legislation in place and where there is “significant uncertainty” around the expectation that the Office of National Statistics will declare the scheme to be off the government’s balance sheet.

    The Accounting Officer Assessment for the scheme, which is itself a piece of spin, admits:

    (more…)