KENT County Council is considering plans with Essex County Council to build and operate a third Thames crossing, it has emerged.

The two authorities are to investigate what it would take to construct a river crossing and fund it through tolls.

The crossing, if it went ahead, would represent the largest local government-funded civil engineering projects ever constructed, with predicted costs estimated at £1billion.

Tolls an option

The two authorities are to widen the scope of a feasibility study that originally set out to examine the demand for a crossing and consider where it could be built.

Now the study will investigate ways in which it could be both built and funded, with tolls among the options.

County transport chiefs say they are determined to act because of their concerns the Government, which has commissioned its own study into a crossing, will prove unwilling to meet the scheme's costs.

They are also anxious about the impact of the Government's plans for a huge expansion of house-building as part of the Kent Thames Gateway, believing it will heap further pressure on existing roads.

Seize up

Cllr Keith Ferrin (Con), KCC's cabinet member for highways, said: "It can certainly be done in engineering terms but the issue will be whether it can be done in financial terms.

"We are determined in Kent and Essex to ensure that this crossing happens. Unless we do something fairly big, the whole of north Kent will seize up.

"We [KCC and Essex CC] are going to look between us to provide a Lower Thames Crossing in the same way that we provided the first Dartford Crossing.

"We feel the Government is unlikely to ever get around to funding it in the timescale that it will be needed."

While the potential costs are huge, KCC is likely to point to the £69million in revenue raised through the Dartford tolls as evidence they could provide much of the money needed.

For the full story see this week's Dartford Messenger.