House of Commons - Strategic river crossings

Strategic river crossings - Transport Contents

3 Delivering river crossings: East London and the Lower Thames

16. This chapter examines the current proposals to build new river crossings in east London and the Lower Thames. The need for new crossings in both locations has been known for many years but progress on bringing them to construction has been disappointing. We have identified three main reasons for that lack of progress:

i) an absence of consensus between the areas affected by new crossings;

ii) changes of policy between government administrations; and

iii) insufficient political leadership in finalising plans for new river crossings

East London Crossings

17. London is predicted to grow by two million people over the next two decades, becoming a city of ten million people by 2031.[23] East London has the potential to absorb a large proportion of that population growth. However, according to Lord Adonis, who examined the case for more east London river crossings with the Centre for London,[24] connectivity is sorely lacking and east London will only reach its potential if the GLA can deliver a number of new crossings.[25] Within the M25, there are 23 fixed road crossings west of Tower Bridge (not including Tower Bridge itself) but just two to the east.[26] The Blackwall Tunnel, between Greenwich and Tower Hamlets, is operating above capacity at peak periods. Such capacity constraints and frequent accidents have made the Blackwall Tunnel unreliable and as a result only one bus route uses it. New river crossings in the vicinity would increase the reliability of the road network and enable more bus routes to operate between north and south London. That would contribute to a less car-dependent city.

18. Currently there are large parts of east London that are economically isolated because of their proximity to the River Thames. Lord Adonis described the existence of "island communities"—areas like Barking Riverside.[27] The LCCI highlighted 2001 census data which illustrated the lack of mobility between communities close to one another but separated by the Thames. Just 400m of river separate Bexley from Newham, but only 574 Bexley residents commuted to Newham for work and just 147 Newham residents travelled in the other direction.[28] Tim Healey, Association of Consultancy and Engineering, said that "the arguments for multiple crossings of the Thames downstream of Tower Bridge are proven beyond doubt."[29]

19. Transport for London (TfL) has proposed a package of river crossings to increase connectivity in East London:

i) a new tunnel under the Thames linking Silvertown and Greenwich (known as the Silvertown Tunnel);

ii) a crossing at Gallions Reach;

iii) a crossing at Belvedere; and/or

iv) a replacement Woolwich Ferry or a new ferry service at Gallions Reach and Silvertown;

The plans for the Silvertown Tunnel are well advanced. The tunnel was designated a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) by the Secretary of State for Transport in June 2012. TfL is conducting further work on the other options. TfL will then undertake a more detailed consultation in September 2015.

20. There has been local opposition to the proposals, particularly the Silvertown Tunnel. "No to Silvertown Tunnel", a local campaign group, are concerned that the new tunnel will increase traffic in the area, exacerbate already poor air quality and will fail to bring the economic benefits promised.[30] However, it is our view that a package of new river crossings in east London is long overdue. Without new crossings, the congestion on the Blackwall Tunnel will only get worse and the area's development potential will never be realised. However, the Silvertown Tunnel must not be built in isolation. Instead it must be part of a package of river crossings. That will ensure that the benefits new crossings bring, such as increased connectivity, access to jobs and greater resilience on the road network, are spread across east London. At the same time, the negative impacts of larger traffic flows will be limited as they are shared across a greater area.

21. The need for new river crossings has been identified by successive GLA administrations, but plans were cancelled once they faced opposition from local campaign groups. Mayor Johnson cancelled the planned Thames Gateway Bridge upon taking office in 2008 for that reason, only to identify the same need for more cross-river capacity later in his tenure.[31] John Hayes MP, Minister of State, DfT, said that the political cycle had had a detrimental impact on delivering infrastructure:

Let me be blunt: the Committee knows well that in democratic politics there is always a problem with Government taking decisions, and that is for two reasons: first, because the payback for those decisions is not within a five-year span, and people are acutely aware of the electoral effects of the decisions they take; secondly, they are reluctant to bind the hands of their successors. That is a perfectly noble aspect of our politics. […] For those two reasons, and perhaps a third, that people do not want to get these things wrong, Governments, perhaps understandably, have not always been as clear or decisive on infrastructure as they might be.[32]

Stronger leadership is required to promote the benefits of new river crossings and limit the impact of the political cycle on planned infrastructure for which there is a clear need. In spring 2014, the Centre for London set up a Commission to explore how best to deliver river crossings in east London. In line with our findings, the Commission identified a lack of political leadership committed to bringing river crossings schemes to construction. To solve that problem, the Commission recommended the establishment of a special purpose company to manage the development of new crossings within the M25. The Commission stated that that company should be a subsidiary of TfL and staffed by people with experience of the current generation of proposals. The Mayor should seek to appoint a respected and influential individual to lead the project, to ensure that they would be personally associated with its success, as David Higgins is with HS2.[33] We believe that proposal has merit.

22. We welcome the package of river crossings proposed by TfL, but successive GLA administrations have identified the need for new river crossings in east London only for progress to stall because of the timescale required which expands beyond the electoral cycle. We accept that major infrastructure projects require long periods of time to plan so that value for money and opportunities for connectivity and economic regeneration are maximised. However, it is not credible to expect that to be completed between elections. To prevent a repeat of the Thames Gateway experience, the Government should now work with the GLA to establish a special purpose company with direct responsibility for delivering new crossings in east London. A deadline should be set for the start of construction and the Mayor should have the power to appoint a chief executive with strong experience of delivering major infrastructure projects.

Lower Thames Crossing

23. The Dartford Crossing has been named the least reliable section of the Strategic Road Network.[34] According to the DfT, the existing crossing carries an average of 140,000 vehicles each day. That compares with an original design capacity for 135,000 vehicles. The Dartford Crossing has the third highest level of delay across the Network, with delays of over nine minutes for around half of users. The annual cost of those delays to the economy, in the form of 'lost time' for users, has been estimated at £15 million.[35] The proposed garden city at Ebbsfleet and Paramount theme park on the Swanscombe Peninsula will, if delivered, put significant additional strain on the crossing.

24. The Minister told us that the need for a new river crossing to alleviate the congestion at Dartford was identified as far back as 1994 in a Government review but successive Governments have failed to be powerful enough champions for a new crossing.[36] In 2009 the DfT identified five location options that could help alleviate the congestion at the existing crossing.

· Option A: at the site of the existing A282 Dartford-Thurrock river crossing;

· Option B: connecting the A2 with the A1089;

· Option C: connecting the M2 with the A13 and the M25 between junctions 29 and 30;

· Option D, which would see a new crossing at Canvey Island, linking the A130 to the M2 in Kent; and

· Option E, an Isle of Grain link to east of Southend.

Those options have now been reduced to two, options A and C (plus one variant of Option C). It is disappointing that it has taken the Government nearly five years to do so. Furthermore, those options are to be consulted upon again in late 2015 or early 2016 once the Highways Agency has conducted further work on them.

25. The DfT has stated that it wishes to build consensus between local authorities before making a final decision.[37] However, reaching that consensus has proven difficult as the positive and negative impacts of new crossings fall unequally on different areas. National transport objectives such as providing better connectivity between the Dover Docks, the M11 and the north of England clash with local concerns about increased congestion and pollution.[38] Representatives from Kent and Essex County Council told us that they supported Option C. Councillor Rodney Bass, Essex County Council, stated that Option C would "produce over 25,000 extra jobs in Essex and Kent by 2031; you would probably create about 21,000 or so extra homes; and it would be a catalyst for major economic activity."[39] However the district councils that would host Option C, Gravesham and Thurrock, disputed that Option C was the best scheme to deliver those aims and stated that other locations for a crossing were more suitable.[40]

26. There are concerns from some local authorities that the Government is not consulting properly with local authorities during the decision making process for the location of the new Lower Thames crossing.[41] The Government has delayed making a final decision until after the General Election which has led Kent County Council to doubt whether the next Government will retain the policy to build a new crossing.[42] Thurrock recommended that the DfT could provide more certainty to local authorities by working more closely with them. They suggested that that should be done by "twin tracking" their planning processes and to gather evidence together on the best location for the new crossing.[43]

27. The Association of Consultancy and Engineering told us that the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and their partial replacement with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) had made coordination between local and national government more difficult. The jurisdictions of individual LEPs do not adequately accommodate the regional impact of new river crossings. Contiguous LEPs need to enhance collaboration to communicate regional priorities:

A bottom-up approach, in which each of the LEPs, the local authorities or whatever would state their priorities and those would gradually be grouped into what was the regional priority and, ultimately, what were the national priorities, strikes me as a way in which local opinions could be given; but a strategic overview would have to be taken, because the nature of a strategic crossing is that its impact will be far wider than the area that is considering whether or not to put money into the venture.[44]

The Minister accepted that there was a case for facilitating better "joined-up thinking" between different partners in the decision-making process including LEPs and local authorities.[45]

28. We are disappointed that the Department for Transport has made such little progress on delivering a new river crossing in the Lower Thames during this Parliament. We do, however, welcome the Department's attempts to build consensus on the location for the new crossings. It is unfortunate, however, that both Kent County Council and Thurrock District Council, supporters and opponents of Option C respectively, have criticised the Department for working in isolation and without proper consultation. The Minister must show more leadership in finding a consensus between the affected local authorities by investigating what mitigations can be provided to limit the environmental impact of the new crossing and any increased traffic that results from it. The Department should take an active role in facilitating "joined-up thinking" between Local Enterprise Partnerships.[46] The Department for Transport must work with the Department for Communities and Local Government to identify how Local Enterprise Partnerships can increase their effectiveness by working together to identify regional priorities for development.