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The tunnel trapped in £300m planning limbo for 15 years and still not started

A state-owned company has spent nearly £300m filling out a planning application to build a 14-mile road, official figures have revealed.

The Lower Thames Crossing, connecting Essex and Kent, was first proposed by the government 15 years ago and has not yet begun construction.

National Highways revealed in a Freedom of Information response that the application for planning permission has cost it £297m so far, separate to any future building costs.

The revelation has sparked fresh calls for an overhaul of how the UK’s infrastructure planning operates to make it easier to build new roads and other transport facilities.

The “development consent order” consists of 2,383 different documents adding up to a total of 359,866 pages, although National Highways says that many of these are duplicates or revisions of the original submission

Pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade has calculated that if laid end to end, the application would extend for 66 miles – five times longer than the actual road.

The cost of the planning documents equals nearly four times the amount spent on the ongoing Covid inquiry so far, and is more than half the average cost of building a hospital.

The Lower Thames Crossing is intended to relieve pressure on the Dartford Crossing, currently the main route between Essex and Kent.

It would involve digging a 2.4-mile tunnel under the Thames, further downriver than any existing crossing, and would connect to the M25 at its northern extent and the M2 to the south.

The overall cost of the project is now estimated at £8.3bn, nearly 50 per cent more expensive than originally thought, with construction due to begin in two years’ time with a target completion date of 2031.

Sam Richards of Britain Remade told i: “Britain Remade fully backs the plans for the Lower Thames Crossing, but spending £300m just on a planning application is simply astonishing. But unfortunately this is set to increase further thanks to our dysfunctional planning system.

“For the hundreds of millions of pounds one part of government is paying another part of government for permission to build the Lower Thames Crossing, Norway could build the longest and deepest road tunnels and have change left over.

“The Lower Thames Crossing is symbolic of what is wrong with our planning system. From multiple rounds of consultation to last minute government delays for no good reason, currently it’s simply far too difficult and takes far too long to get anything built in Britain.”

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove has promised to streamline the planning system for infrastructure projects in future. A Government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mark Bottomley, the Lower Thams Crossing’s development director, said: “The Lower Thames Crossing will provide a vital new transport route to help grow the UK economy and improve the journeys of millions of people every year by tackling congestion on the Dartford Crossing.

“We understand that for many the new road is needed urgently and the length of time which goes into the planning can be frustrating. However it is vital that a project of the size and complexity of the Lower Thames Crossing goes through a rigorous, democratic planning process that makes sure we take every opportunity to maximise the benefits and reduce the impact on local communities and the environment.”

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