Representation by Oliver Platts
- Date submitted
- 16 February 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
The Lower Thames Crossing as planned will: - Consume a great quantity of land resources for no good reason. Including: farmland needed for food security, potential land for housing to alleviate the housing crisis, and land that is currently wild species natural habitat, including woodland and greenbelt, during a national crisis of wild species population collapse - Create a great amount of carbon emissions during construction for no good reason - Increase the UK's carbon emissions produced through road transport, through induced demand - Not solve the problem it is intended to solve, namely alleviating traffic congestion around the Dartford Crossing. Through induced demand, soon after completion of the Lower Thames Crossing, the Dartford Crossing will be just as congested as it was before, only with the added problem now of the congested Lower Thames Crossing. In this it is, as planned, just like most other new road building schemes other than roads with expensive ongoing tolls - Is financially irresponsible due to the additional burden not only of construction, but also of the ongoing costs incurred by maintaining the Lower Thames Crossing infrastructure into the future, at a time when national budgets are highly constrained and when budget is required for other, more important, priorities.