M25: Dartford

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

Yes, I would, but that tunnel would be east of Gravesend. I ask my hon. Friend to consider carefully the fact that any road system we put in place at the approach to the existing Dartford crossing—option A, the alternative advocated by him—would result in at least six years of roadworks and would kill the Thames Gateway area. It would kill the house building and enterprise that exists in that place and would be devastating for local communities, who are already suffering from pollution, which is going through the roof. I ask him to consider some of those issues and to understand that the option C route provides an alternative to all those downsides and can help seriously to improve the current traffic congestion from which we suffer.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. May I say to the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) that I am allowing interventions to be very long on the understanding that people will not make speeches, but these interventions are turning into mini-speeches themselves? If people kept their interventions a little more brief, I would be grateful.

[Mr Holloway]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Tell that to your constituents in 10 years’ time, when the problem at Dartford has not been ameliorated by a long tunnel to the east of Gravesend. Again, I am not an expert, but I think you are thinking in the old way and you are still—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is speaking through the Chair, so if he would refer to the hon. Member for Dartford, I would be grateful.

[Mr Holloway]

I am sure you are not thinking in the old way, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford may be thinking in terms of six years of disaster, building new bridges and so on. I am not an expert on tunnelling, but I would have thought that, where a tunnel is being built, there is inconvenience from things such as ventilation shafts. However, where a tunnel is being started to the south of the A2 or north of the A14—