Every councillor present at a full meeting of Thurrock Council in southwest Essex has indicated their opposition to the building of the Lower Thames Crossing.
The website Your Thurrock reports the Chair of Thurrock Council’s Lower Thames Crossing Task Force bought forward a motion at the Full Council meeting on Wednesday (25 January) to seek assurances that the Council is committed to opposing the new crossing scheme as currently presented. The outcome was a show of complete and unanimous opposition from every single Thurrock Councillor in attendance at the meeting.
Thurrock Council’s analysis of official National Highways data has concluded that the proposed new crossing would take as little as 4% of traffic away in the morning peak hour, and 11% in the pm peak hour, which it says is not enough to solve the problems at the Dartford Crossing.
Chair of Thames Crossing Action Group, Laura Blake told the website: “We are of course delighted that all Thurrock Councillors remain united in their unanimous opposition to the proposed LTC. Councillors are right to acknowledge the severity of impact the proposed LTC would have on Thurrock, and indeed throughout the region both north and south of the river. What National Highways are proposing would fail to meet the scheme objectives, and would be extremely destructive and harmful to people and the environment.”
National Highways says it is designing the Lower Thames Crossing to be the greenest road ever built in the UK. A tunnel was chosen rather than a bridge to avoid protected wetlands and marshes, seven green bridges would provide safer crossing points for people and wildlife, and viaducts are planned to protect a nearby flood plain.
40 miles (60km) of new or improved pathways would be made available for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. The scheme is also a Pathfinder project, exploring carbon neutral construction, and is the first UK major infrastructure project to put carbon reduction at the heart of its procurement process, where contractors incentivised to drive down carbon at every step, and throughout the supply chain.
(Picture – National Highways)
