Supplementary consultation now closed

3 April 2020

The supplementary consultation on the latest changes to the design of the Lower Thames Crossing project has now closed (at 23.59 on 2nd April 2020).

At the initial count over 6,000 responses have been received. Over 74,000 people visited the consultation website and 4,000 visitors attended 18 public events, as we asked our communities and stakeholders to give us their feedback. We asked for feedback on the changes to the design that had been proposed following the feedback from our previous consultation and from new technical information from surveys and ground investigations becoming available.

The consultation ran from Wednesday 29 January to Thursday 2 April 2020. Originally scheduled to run for eight weeks, we extended the consultation by a week and the final public events were replaced by a telephone service, to give people more time to complete their response. These were arranged to reflect the Government’s guidance on managing the Coronavirus pandemic.

Alan Seywright, Project Director, for the Lower Thames Crossing, said:

“We’d like to thank everyone who participated in our consultation and provided feedback, especially given the challenges of recent weeks. The responses will play a vital part in firming up our plans for the Lower Thames Crossing. We’ll continue to work with businesses, communities and local authorities to develop the design and maximise opportunities to unlock economic growth and improve access to leisure, retail and job opportunities.

“The Lower Thames Crossing will bring huge benefits to people living, working and travelling in and around Kent, Thurrock, Essex and beyond. It will nearly double road capacity across the Thames east of London, reducing traffic by nearly a quarter on the Dartford Crossing.”

Now our supplementary consultation has closed, we are hard at work analysing the responses. These will inform the plans for our planning application, known as a Development Consent Order (DCO) application, to be submitted later this year.

Part of the DCO application will be a Consultation Report, explaining how the issues raised during the consultations were considered and responded to.

We are anticipating holding another round of consultation on some further refinements to the design of the Lower Thames Crossing, that did not form part of the current consultation, ahead of submitting our Development Consent Order application. Although the decision to hold this further consultation is unrelated to Coronavirus, we have chosen to announce this now to ensure stakeholders and communities are aware that there will be another opportunity to comment. We will provide further information in due course.

For further information contact us at ltc@highwaysengland.co.uk or by calling 0300 123 5000. You can also get the latest updates on Facebook and Twitter.