A tunnel too far? Debate intensifies over need for Lower Thames Crossing

Busy traffic at the Dartford Crossing, which traverses the Thames to the east of London. It regularly operates 33% over capacity. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

‘They say it will ease traffic, but I can’t see it myself,” said Lyn Loines about Britain’s biggest road-building project, connecting north Kent with Essex via a huge, six-lane, 2.6-mile tunnel under the Thames.

Construction of the £9bn Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) will be on the doorstep of Loines’s house near Gravesend, blocking a view of green belt land that takes in lines of trees and rolling fields of bright yellow rapeseed. When work was complete, more cars and lorries would quickly fill up the roads, leaving everyone worse off, Loines said.