Representation by The Faversham Society (The Faversham Society)
- Date submitted
- 20 February 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Given the doubts recently expressed by the professional engineering institutions together with several transport economists about the appraisal method used to justify the scheme, to proceed with construction would be unwise. Time savings are not effective indicators of the real costs and benefits, and they are based on assumptions about the way traffic will grow over the lifetime of the tunnel that post-Covid, may no longer hold. The savings are likely to be short-term, and a significant proportion will be consumed by road vehicles travelling further, or making new journeys that do not necessarily support the economy. Given more road space with higher speeds or less congestion, users travel further and the traffic load spills over into other roads nearby, which discourages active travel, compromises health, and increases urban sprawl. Such trips will add to congestion costs in future years, and having been baked into the demand pattern they will be difficult to reverse. On the other hand, the costs will accrue indefinitely. At a time when the national budget is under strain, the project amounts to the largest single infrastructure scheme undertaken in the UK in recent years. There will be unacceptable loss of wildlife habitat, and Independently of any traffic growth, the construction process itself will release 2 million tonnes of carbon. This conflicts directly with the Climate Change Act, which commits the UK government to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.