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The wait goes on… Lower Thames Crossing announcement is postponed again

David Mairs
By David Mairs
7th October 2024

Parliament in recess thought to be behind delay – or was there a political reason?

As damp squibs go, last week’s anticipated announcement of a decision on the building of the proposed Lower Thames Crossing took some beating.
With eyes across the region glued to computer screens – and more specifically the Department for Transport website – for notification of the long-awaited verdict, rumour began to spread that we would not in fact be discovering the fate of the project that afternoon after all.
And indeed that is how events unfolded. Despite Friday (October 4) having been the statutory deadline for the announcement – and to an intense backdrop of interest from local media, conservation organisations such as ourselves, business leaders, politicians and many others – the DfT informed us merely that an update would be given “in due course”.
Of course, the decision deadline had already been delayed from Thursday, June 20, due to the holding of the general election.
It has been reported that the latest delay was down to Parliament having been in recess until today (Monday), although that was hardly last-minute news – surely allowance would have been made for recess beforehand?
Others suggested that a potential approval of such an environmentally damaging scheme would have been politically awkward given Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement on Friday morning of a £22 billion carbon-capture programme.
The announcement of Secretary of State for Transport Louise Haigh’s decision on whether to grant a Development Consent Order will possibly now be made this week (beginning Monday, October 10).
CPRE Kent has made substantial representation to the planning process and maintains its view that the adverse environmental and financial impacts of the proposed scheme outweigh any purported benefits.

  • To learn more about the Lower Thames Crossing scheme, click here
The proposed southern approach to the Lower Thames Crossing (pic National Highways)