Extra £174m earmarked for ‘spiralling’ bill for Lower Thames Crossing

More than £3bn is due to be spent on the proposed road tunnel between Kent and Essex, which is estimated to have higher costs per mile than HS2Ministers have earmarked more than £170m extra to help build the Lower Thames Crossing road tunnel, fuelling concerns over the “spiralling” costs of one of the UK’s largest planned infrastructure projects.The proposed £11bn route under the Thames between Kent and Essex is already estimated to cost more each mile than the HS2 high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham. It was given the funding boost as part of a plan to spend £3.1bn of public money on the project, before a hoped-for injection of £7.5bn by a private sector firm. Continue reading...