Lower Thames Crossing Supplementary Consultation 2020

29th January 202018th February 2021 Web Master

The Lower Thames Crossing Supplementary Consultation will run for 8 weeks from Weds 29th Jan to Weds 25th March 2020.

*Due to the Coronavirus Highways England have today (March 19th 2020) announced that the consultation will be extended by 1 week and will not end at 23:59 on Thursday 2nd April 2020. More details of this can be found on their website – https://highwaysengland.co.uk/lower-thames-crossing-supplementary-consultation-extended.

This consultation will cover the design changes that have been undertaken in response to the earlier statutory consultation and the feedback received.

This may be the last chance for residents to have any chance to shape the design before Highways England submit their Development Consent Order application, which they current plan to do in Summer 2020. It is vital that as many people as possible review and respond to this consultation.

Details of the changes and what HE will be consulting on in this consultation were released at 00.01 on Weds 29th Jan. We as an action group will keep providing updates and sharing info as we wade through the many pages of consultation documents, and keep asking Highways England as many questions as we can! You may wish to wait until closer to the end of the consultation period to respond so that you can review as much info as possible before responding.

Details of info/mobile events can be found here
Details of Deposit Locations and Information Points can be found here

Things to remember

Read and get as much info as possible.

Take part in the consultation – respond by 23:59 on Thurs 2nd April 2020*.

Use any free comments boxes to share all your opinions and feedback. If you need more space use extra sheets of paper (just label them with the question number they respond to) This is your chance to give your opinions and feedback.

Do NOT copy and paste info from websites etc into your response. Info on our website is to help bring you the facts we have uncovered whilst wading through the consultation documents, so that you can consider your own opinions and responses. Please give personal individual responses. In 2016 13,000 consultation response were counted as 1 organised group response as they were pre-formed letters with space for personal comments. HE will do this again if they consider responses as organised group responses.

Remember that the consultation response form (paper copy and online) will likely be designed using cleverly worded questions to try and get the results they are looking for. Read all questions carefully and be sure to give the answer you want!

Highways England have a legal obligation to consult us adequately with regard to LTC, with clear and informative materials. If you do not feel that this is/has been the case then please comment to that effect, and provide as much info as possible as to why you feel this way. if you experience any issues at the HE consultation info events then please comment on that too. HE have to prove to the Planning Inspectorate that they have consultated adequately, and if we can prove that is not the case they may be forced to hold further consultation, slowing them down further, and ensuring that we have adequate opportunity to be consultated with clear and informative info that we need and deserve.

We will be creating a step by step to Supplementary Consultation, just as we did in 2018 to try and help guide you through the consultation, and as soon as it is available we will publish it on the website. In the meantime we would encourage you to please read all the updates and info we are publishing to the website and social media, attend an info event, ask lots of questions so that you have as much info as possible ready to send your consultation response.

Highways England DO NOT have permission yet!

They do NOT have permission yet! After the consultation Highways England will analyze the responses, and then put together their Development Consent Order (DCO) application which they currently plan to submit to the Planning Inspectorate in Summer 2020.

If their application is accepted, you can then register as an Interested Party, to remain involved in the process. An examination period then begins that can last months if not longer. At the end of the examination the Secretary of State for Transport (currently Grant Shapps MP) decides whether to grant the DCO or not.

Once the decision is announced there is a six week period in which the decision may be challenged in the High Court. This process of legal challenge is known as Judicial Review. You can find out more about the whole process here.

Take part in the Lower Thames Crossing Supplementary Consultation 2020

Please remember that anyone can take part in the consultation, including children (with parent/guardian permission). It is not limited to one response per household, everyone can and should take part! Organisations, businesses and campaign groups can also take part, so if you have one of those you can respond on behalf of that, as well as your own personal response.

As this is a Supplementary Consultation Highways England will not be covering such a large area for their events etc as they did during the Statutory Consultation, but this doesn’t mean that people outside of the areas they are holding the events can’t take part! So be sure to let all your friend and family etc know, the more responses the better!

Children who may not be in a position to submit a written response to the consultation can also draw a response if they prefer! Highways England have requested to help them with the analysis, it would be really helpful if an adult could include something in writing to accompany the picture, as it would help with understanding what the child wants to say about the proposals.

You can take part anonymously if you wish, HE just request that your provide your postcode so they can understand where you live in relation to the scheme.

Please only use the following response channels. Highways England cannot guarantee that response sent to any other address will be included in their analysis.

Online response form. Fill in the online survey at www.lowerthamescrossing.co.uk/consultation-2020 (available from 00.01 29 Jan 2020)
Freepost – Post your response form or comments to: FREEPOST LTC CONSULTATION
The freepost address is the only text needed on the envelope, and no stamp is required.
Paper copy response form can be collected at info events, or info/deposit locations.
Postal response postmarked up to and including 26th of March 2020 will be accepted to allow for people who put their responses into postboxes later on the 25th so won’t be postmarked until the following day.

Email – Email your comments to: ltc.consultation@traverse.ltd

Remember you need to respond by one of these options, going to an HE info event and telling their team your opinions is good, but won’t be classed as a response.