Latest news with #LowerThamesCrossing
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Labour ought to think small on infrastructure
Your report last month on the Lower Thames Crossing and George Monbiot's article (Overblown infrastructure projects damage lives and imperil democracy. Why is Britain addicted to them?, 24 June) raise the question of the rationale of government investments. More good money is going into HS2, completion receding over the horizon, and nearly another £590m into the Lower Thames Crossing, which is supposed to relieve congestion on the Dartford Crossing. As many earlier studies have shown, more road capacity does not solve but worsens traffic congestion, an observation made in the 1963 Buchanan report. In fact, over half the traffic on the Dartford Crossing is local between south Essex and north Kent. The latest payment to the Lower Thames Crossing would pay for the KenEx tram project linking Dartford, Northfleet, Gravesend, Grays, Tilbury and Purfleet, offering a six-minute or better service, and cutting journey times. Indeed, the Thames tram tunnel has been designed to allow emergency vehicles to use it and save time reaching local hospitals, especially at peak times. Research shows that car commuters will use trams when available, saving the time and trouble of looking for parking: 25% of tram passengers have switched from car use, the UK average. In the US, the figure is about 40%. KenEx reducing the Dartford Crossing traffic by about 20% will free capacity for freight that cannot go by rail. This is the same claimed for the Lower Thames Crossing, at less than 5% of the cost. The other £13.5bn would go a long way repairing hospitals and Lewis LesleyLiverpool The future funding of large-scale infrastructure projects may well be vital for growth. But the people of north Kent and Essex living near the current Dartford Crossing would be much happier if small-scale projects such as the repair and subsequent reopening of the A226 between Gravesend and Dartford, which collapsed nearly two years ago, could be carried out soon. Furthermore, the funding wrangles over the Gravesend-Tilbury passenger ferry should be ended and the service restored. These smaller infrastructure projects would improve the lives of many working people living in the area and make them feel more disposed to support the disruption that will be caused by the construction of the new CoomberPinner, London The government's commitment of £725bn over 10 years in the UK infrastructure strategy is welcome but, as George Monbiot points out, overblown infrastructure projects damage lives and imperil democracy. In fact, the biggest infrastructure danger to democracy is the question of the refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament. With costs already estimated as high as £22bn and rising, this government is expected to make final decisions in the next year or two, so a budget allocation will be required and should be acknowledged in spending plans. Viewed through one lens this is essential work to restore and conserve one of our finest buildings, which serves as a globally recognised symbol of British democracy. Through another it is a crumbling, dysfunctional pile that distorts our democracy and economy and will only proceed as a vanity project for ForsythPenzance, Cornwall Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Overblown infrastructure projects damage lives and imperil democracy. Why is Britain addicted to them?
There appear to be two main determinants of what infrastructure gets built. The first is whether it provides large and lucrative contracts for powerful corporations. The second is whether ministers can pose beside it in hard hats and yellow jackets. Otherwise, it is hard to explain the decisions made. Both determinants favour large and spectacular schemes. Big corporations don't want to dabble in minor improvements: real money comes from prestige projects over which governments cannot afford to lose face, ensuring that they keep throwing cash, however high the budget spirals. And few ministers want to pose beside a new bus stop: a grand ego demands a grand setting. Last week, the government quietly flicked another £590m at the planned Lower Thames Crossing, to the east of London. That's the kind of money other public services must beg for. Compare it, for example, with the funding allocated in this month's spending review for local amenities such as parks, libraries and swimming pools. Across the whole of England, they received £350m. But the extra money for the Lower Thames Crossing buys less than a mile of road. It means that the total costs of the scheme, according to the government, have risen to £9.2bn, for 14 miles of road. Even this is a major underestimate. As the Transport Action Network (Tan) points out, several aspects of the project, such as necessary upgrades to junctions and connecting roads, to take the extra traffic, have been excluded from the total, disguising the full cost. TAN estimates it at £16bn. That's more than all the new money (£15bn) trumpeted by Rachel Reeves this month for buses, trains and trams in England, outside London. It's seven times as much as the Treasury allocated to fixing England's school classrooms. Or the government could use it to double the amount invested in the National Housing Bank, to build social and affordable homes: which, by contrast, we need. The benefit-cost ratio (BCR) is shocking, whichever way you slice it. Using the official figure for costs, the government body National Highways estimated the BCR at 0.48: in other words, a net loss of 52 pence for every pound spent. It then threw in some vaguely defined 'wider economic benefits' to deliver an 'adjusted BCR' of 1.22. That's still low value for money. Compare it with fixing potholes and maintaining local roads, which has a BCR of 7, officially 'very high' value for money. Oh, and guess what? The maintenance backlog for England's local roads is just over £16bn. I asked the Campaign for Better Transport to estimate what else might be done with the official figure of £9.2bn. It told me the money would enable every community in England to have what the government defines as a 'reasonable level' of bus services for the next nine years. Or it could pay for 11,400 miles (18,400km) of cycle lanes, or 5,700 miles (9,200km) of bus lanes. So why is this vastly expensive white elephant endlessly inflated while crucial services and benefits are cut? The clue is the 'vastly expensive' bit: a single project on this scale can be extremely lucrative for large corporations, and they will lobby for it with commensurate vigour. The government insists the new road will relieve congestion. But even 30 years ago, official assessments showed that new roads generate new traffic, a phenomenon called 'induced demand'. They shift congestion to the next pinch point, which becomes another issue for the government to solve: jobs-for-life for the construction industry. Using modelling data from National Highways, Thurrock council estimates that traffic on the Dartford crossing, which the new road is supposed to relieve, will return to current levels in just five years. Given that the Lower Thames Crossing will take at least seven years to build, with massive disruption throughout, it's hard to detect the public benefit. It will also funnel more traffic on to the M25, A13 and M2, greatly increasing congestion. TAN has done what successive governments, astonishingly, have failed to do: commissioned a report on how demand for freight and passenger transport in the region and on the wider network might best be met. It found that new heavy freight and passenger rail connections would provide a far more effective solution, at roughly a quarter of the price. Even with added rail loading gauge upgrades and electrification, bus routes, ferries and trams, this approach would remain far cheaper, while meeting public need, reducing pollution and social exclusion and catalysing the long-overdue transition to rail freight in the UK. But neither successive governments nor National Highways have seriously examined such alternatives to the crossing. For the past 60 years, the answer has been roads, regardless of the question. Not only has National Highways ignored other means of solving the problem, it has become promoter as well as planner of the scheme, engaging in a public relations offensive that looks to me like a crashing conflict of interest. If you want what transport planners call a 'modal shift' from one kind of travel to another, first you need a conceptual shift. But we won't get it from existing agencies. National Highways is a relic of another age, unfit for purpose, driving us towards disaster. It should be scrapped. The greatest costs of schemes such as this are felt not in our tax bills, but in our bodies, minds and surroundings. The government estimates the new road will generate 6.6m tonnes of carbon dioxide. It would greatly increase both air pollution and traffic noise, and commit us to an even greater extent to car driving, with all its destructive implications for health, fitness and mental wellbeing, community cohesion and social attitudes. As a rule, though there are exceptions, what improves our lives are multiple small interventions, tailored to local needs and responsive to local democracy. What damages our lives are prestige projects tailored to the demands of big finance and corporate shareholders. The capital behind them, that sometimes seems more powerful than governments, treats democracy and public need as traffic engineers treat pedestrians – obstacles to be designed out of the way. Sometimes big infrastructure is necessary, but at all times it is a threat to democracy. This is why governments should approach it with caution and scepticism. Instead, they act as hucksters for corporate boondoggles. Such schemes allow politicians to stamp their mark on the nation, to don the hard hat and announce: 'I did this.' Look on my works, ye mighty … One measure of a nation's success is the extent to which it can reduce its dependence on road transport, in favour of inclusive, low-impact travel. Our government seems committed to failure. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Powys County Times
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Powys County Times
Transport Secretary to draw ‘line in the sand' over HS2 as she reveals failings
The Transport Secretary is set to lift the lid on the lack of oversight that contributed to the spiralling costs of HS2. Heidi Alexander will tell the Commons on Wednesday that she is drawing a 'line in the sand' over the beleaguered rail project, as the Government attempts to reset how major infrastructure is delivered. Ministers plan to learn from the mistakes of HS2 so that they do a better job when it comes to projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Lower Thames Crossing, it is understood. 'HS2 has made Britain a laughing stock in terms of its ability to deliver big infrastructure projects, and it has to end. This will set out the way we will do that,' a Government source told the PA news agency. The result of two reviews into HS2 are expected to be announced alongside the Transport Secretary's statement. The first of these is an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2, who was appointed late last year. He will assess the construction of the project's first phase from London to Birmingham. A second, wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2, led by James Stewart, will also report back. This is expected to set out what has gone wrong with the project, and what ministers can learn for future infrastructure projects. As she addresses MPs, the Transport Secretary is expected to address allegations of fraud by contractors to HS2 which have emerged recently. Earlier this week, it emerged HS2 Ltd reported a sub-contractor working on the rail line to HMRC following an internal probe. During the statement, Ms Alexander is also set to announce a new chair of HS2. The current chair, Sir Jon Thompson, previously announced he would stand down in the spring of this year. His replacement will be Mike Brown, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Mr Brown is the former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the deliver of Crossrail, the transport project which became London's Elizabeth Line. HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then onto Manchester and Leeds, but the project was severely curtailed by the Conservatives in power due to spiralling costs.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Transport Secretary to draw ‘line in the sand' over HS2 as she reveals failings
The Transport Secretary is set to lift the lid on the lack of oversight that contributed to the spiralling costs of HS2. Heidi Alexander will tell the Commons on Wednesday that she is drawing a 'line in the sand' over the beleaguered rail project, as the Government attempts to reset how major infrastructure is delivered. Ministers plan to learn from the mistakes of HS2 so that they do a better job when it comes to projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Lower Thames Crossing, it is understood. 'HS2 has made Britain a laughing stock in terms of its ability to deliver big infrastructure projects, and it has to end. This will set out the way we will do that,' a Government source told the PA news agency. The result of two reviews into HS2 are expected to be announced alongside the Transport Secretary's statement. The first of these is an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2, who was appointed late last year. He will assess the construction of the project's first phase from London to Birmingham. A second, wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2, led by James Stewart, will also report back. This is expected to set out what has gone wrong with the project, and what ministers can learn for future infrastructure projects. As she addresses MPs, the Transport Secretary is expected to address allegations of fraud by contractors to HS2 which have emerged recently. Earlier this week, it emerged HS2 Ltd reported a sub-contractor working on the rail line to HMRC following an internal probe. During the statement, Ms Alexander is also set to announce a new chair of HS2. The current chair, Sir Jon Thompson, previously announced he would stand down in the spring of this year. His replacement will be Mike Brown, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Mr Brown is the former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the deliver of Crossrail, the transport project which became London's Elizabeth Line. HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then onto Manchester and Leeds, but the project was severely curtailed by the Conservatives in power due to spiralling costs. Concerns about the costs of the stunted project have persisted, with £100 million spent on a bat tunnel aimed at mitigating the railway's environmental impact singled out by Sir Keir Starmer for criticism.
The Sun
16-06-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Cringe moment Treasury minister has NO idea how much new £10bn tunnel costs or where it is while announcing it on TV
A TREASURY minister appeared to have a meltdown live on TV today, blaming a series of blunders on a "very early morning". Emma Reynolds was being interviewed about the new £10billion Lower Thames Crossing which will link Essex and Kent. 6 6 6 But as she was grilled live on LBC, she forgot where the project is taking place. On top of that blunder in the car-crash interview, she couldn't remember how much it is going to cost either. Frantically leafing through her papers, she asked the LBC interviewer to "forgive" her for not being able to "recall" the key details. Reynolds also appeared to confuse the Devon town of Dartmouth with Dartford in Kent. Appearing on LBC Radio, the bumbling minister said: "I meant Dartford, excuse me, I had a very early morning. "You'll forgive me, I can't recall the landing zone." Presenter Nick Ferrari then asked critically: "So the crossing that you're talking about, you don't know where it is?" She went on to vaguely say it would connect the North with "key ports" in the South East. Ferrari then took it upon himself to inform Reynolds that the project will see two tunnels constructed under the Thames to the east of Tilbury in Essex and Gravesend in Kent. When he pressed her on the cost of building the crossing, she again resorted to vague statements. She floundered: "It's going to cost quite a lot of money, several billion pounds." The presenter savagely asked: "You don't know that either, do you?' "Is there much point continuing this conversation because you don't know where a bridge starts, where it ends and you don't know how much it costs?" Rachel Reeves called the project a "turning point for our national infrastructure". The £9.2billion project will comprise more than 14 miles of roads, and the Transport Secretary gave formal approval in March. Heidi Alexander said the "crucial" project has been been stuck in "planning limbo for far too long". National Highways will build the crossing, and construction could start as early as next year. It is expected to take between six and eight years to finish. £1.2billion has already been spent on design and planning work. 6 6 6
