BBC South East News – LTC Budget 2020

BBC South East News (11th March 2020)

Not long after arriving at the info event at Linford on 11th March Thames Crossing Action Group Chair Laura Blake received a phone call from BBC South East asking her if they could do a Skype interview with her about the Budget announcement in relation to the proposed Lower Thames Crossing.  As mobile data reception was very hit and miss in the area, a reliable Skype connection couldn’t be obtained.  Instead Laura recorded her response on her mobile phone and attempted to upload to DropBox then share via email with BBC South East.

“I was having absolute nightmares trying to get a pretty large video file to update to Dropbox using mobile data, until a local resident kindly came to my rescue and allowed me to log into her home wifi, give my phone a quick charge, email the link to the video to BBC South East, and give them a quick call to ensure they had received it!” TCAG Chair – Laura Blake

Thank you to that resident, you know who you are!

Anyway, BBC South East got the video and a snippet of it was used within their piece on the 6.30 news.

Here’s a recording of the actual tv report last night!

We have filed a complaint with the BBC about the way this piece was presented in a biased way, it was misleading and factually incorrect.  A copy of our correspondence with the BBC over this can be viewed at www.thamescrossingactiongroup.com/tcag-complaint-emails-to-bbc/ and will be updated as things progress.

• At the start the presenter states that the LTC is now set to be built after the Chancellor confirmed that he will make the money available to start construction.
  We appreciate that Amanda Akass, Political Editor stressed that LTC is still out to consultation
• The use of the 2018 fly through video implies it is current, when we all know the video is no longer up to date
• Allowing and using footage of Gareth Johnson MP (Dartford) stating “the confirmation today in the budget today that the LTC project will go ahead” is misleading and untrue, a DCO has not yet been granted.
• The route they drew on the map in red was not an accurate or official representation of the route
• The comment that Compulsory Purchase Orders will be made and homes demolished again gives the impression that a DCO has been granted, which is again misleading as this is not the case.
• Also the BBC normally has a policy of balanced reporting and equal time given to both sides, clearly this was not the case in this piece as it was biased in favour of the crossing, even though they had longer footage available to them, as the video footage Laura sent was longer and relevant. You can watch a copy of that below if you wish!

 

The original footage that Laura sent BBC South East