UK ministers take control of £10bn Lower Thames Crossing

A view of the River Thames from Gravesend looking west towards London, at the location of the proposed Lower Thames Crossing between Kent and Essex. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Ministers have stripped the government’s road-building agency of responsibility for a £10bn tunnel under the River Thames amid a drive by Keir Starmer’s cabinet to take tight control over important infrastructure projects for fear of cost overruns and delays.

Oversight of the Lower Thames Crossing – the UK’s largest planned infrastructure project – has been taken away from National Highways and handed to the Department for Transport (DfT).