Tag: lower-thames-crossing

• Ministers keep control of Lower Thames Crossing

  I’m not sure how much new news there is in the Guardian’s “exclusive” story today on the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), which is a bit confused – to say the least – and is probably a bit exaggerated.

  Citing “internal consultation documents”, the paper reports:

  Ministers have stripped the government’s road-building agency of responsibility for a £10bn tunnel under the River Thames amid a drive by Keir Starmer’s cabinet to take tight control over important infrastructure projects for fear of cost overruns and delays.

  It sounds very dramatic, but usually things in consultation documents haven’t happened yet.

  Apparently oversight of the LTC “has been taken away from National Highways and handed to the Department for Transport (DfT)”, but:

  It is understood that National Highways will remain responsible for the development of the crossing and will publish a breakdown of costs in its annual report, but decisions over the scope and funding of the project will be taken by ministers.

  The article correctly describes the LTC as a “Tier One” infrastructure project. In fact the accounting officer’s assessment for the scheme states:

  LTC falls under the Department’s definition of a Tier 1 Project and therefore adheres to control and governance arrangements within NH, DfT and HMT levels. Final approval of each stage of the business case is made by DfT and HMT ministers. Under its procurement delegations, NH would approve all other steps in the process.

  

  So the DfT and Treasury have had control over the mega-project’s huge costs – expected to be well above £10bn – for a while.

  (more…)

  2025.10.13

• National Highways digs holes in Thames Tunnel carbon pledges

  National Highways has continued its greenwashing of the Lower Thames Crossing but its pledge to wish away emissions from the construction of the unaffordable scheme is full of holes.

  Last week the company claimed in a press release:

  The project aims to cut its construction carbon footprint by 70% by aggressively targeting carbon as it refines the design of the new road and adopting new materials and methods of construction as they emerge. It has also made a legal commitment to responsibly offset any remaining carbon emissions using best practice, and only in the early 2030s once efforts to reduce it during construction are exhausted.

  

  I have written extensively about how the government-owned company invented a purely notional figure for construction carbon emissions, which it now says it will cut by 70%. One part of this scam was to imagine that the project might not use ground-granulated blast furnace slag – a widely used lower carbon cement substitute – and then to claim a saving from deciding to use it after all.  

  I also reported that, although National Highways claims to have carbon limits built into its contracts with the companies that will build the tunnel, it will not disclose what penalties will result from non-compliance, raising concerns that contractors may find it cheaper to pay the penalties.

  National Highways has banned contractors from using offsetting to meet these targets but its Carbon and Energy Management Plan for the scheme does away with any claim that the targets represent any kind of a cut. It refers to “an upper limit for the use of carbon in construction, based on industry practice”, which implicitly admits that the original figure was using poor practice.

  (more…)

  2025.10.07

• Greenwood says Dartford charge failure justifies Thames Crossing

  The announcement in the name of roads minister Lilian Greenwood of a 40% increase in the cost of taking a car across the Thames at Dartford contains perhaps the most mindless statement a politician could make in a climate emergency.

  The need to increase the charges to manage traffic highlights the need for the additional capacity that [Lower Thames Crossing], for which the government confirmed new funding yesterday, will provide.

  Translation: we have failed to manage traffic demand so we are building a new road to accommodate it.

  

  What makes the statement worse is that Greenwood explains in great detail the purpose of the charge and its recent history.

  To manage demand and protect the crossing’s role as a vital component of the nation’s economic infrastructure, a user charge has been collected at the crossing since 2003. In 2014, the tollbooths were removed to help make journeys smoother and the charge was increased to help manage increased demand. This was the last time that charges were increased for all vehicles.

  In the 11 years since, demand at the crossing has grown 7.5%, with the crossing now used by an average of over 150,000 vehicles every day and up to 180,000 vehicles on the busiest days. These traffic levels are well in excess of the crossing’s design capacity, causing delays for drivers using the crossing, congestion and journey disruption to drivers on the M25 and a range of knock-on impacts for local communities.

  And then the killer:

  The new charges will be significantly lower than if they had increased in line with inflation since the tariff was last fully revised in 2014.

  So not only is the government (implicitly) admitting that failing to increase charges at least in line with inflation over the past 11 years means traffic levels “well in excess of the crossing’s design capacity”, but the charges are still not keeping up with inflation.

  Leave a comment Cancel reply

  Δ

  2025.06.18