John Austin

Labour Party | Erith and Thamesmead

Thames Gateway Bridge - Evidence of John Austin MP

I have lived in this part of south east London since 1966.  I worked for a voluntary community organisation in Bexley, mostly in Erith, Belvedere and Thamesmead for 30 years until I was elected MP for Woolwich in 1992.  Following changes to parliamentary boundaries in 1997, I have represented the Erith & Thamesmead constituency.  I live in the constituency in Lower Belvedere on the Thamesmead boundary and have previously lived in Thamesmead, Charlton and Plumstead.

I served as a Greenwich Councillor from 1970 to 1994, was Leader of the Council from 1982-1987 and twice Mayor between 1987 and 1989.

I wish to make comments under seven broad headings

Consultation process
Purpose of proposed Bridge
Traffic and congestion
Health & Environment
Regeneration and employment
Conflict with the Government’s and Mayor’s Strategy
Tolls

Consultation

I believe Transport for London’s consultation process was too narrow, biased and too localised. The consultation was conducted by protagonists for the scheme who did not provide access to any independent assessments of the scheme’s overall impact and did not consider any alternatives or ask the public for their views on transport needs.  In our submission to the Planning Authority, Clive Efford and I noted that the scheme formed part of the Mayor’s transport plan ahead of any consultation.  TfL’s consultation also concentrated on the immediate area of the proposed bridge – an area which suffers from very poor public transport and does have a sense of isolation and where the population might seize upon any possible remedy to that isolation.  They were asked if they supported building a bridge in this location.  They were not asked if they would be willing to support a bridge dedicated to public transport nor if they supported any other public transport alternatives. There was not extensive consultation in areas further away which might suffer most of the adverse effects if this proposal goes through, namely areas from Abbey Wood and Belvedere to Welling, Bexleyheath, Plumstead and Eltham. 

There will be no direct easy access to the bridge from the central and southern areas of Greenwich & Bexley and the residents of these areas were only marginally involved in the consultation.  It is these areas which will suffer the rat-running of vehicles trying to get to and from the bridge, in particular from the A2 and A20 and South Circular.

There has been a groundswell of opposition from those areas since TfL’s consultation in 2003 and more recently since the planning application was considered and as the potential impact on those areas has begun to be realised and publicised.

There should have been a public consultation involving all of those areas and also a set of costed alternative proposals including new and improved public transport.  There would still be time to do that.

Purpose of proposed Bridge

Central to TfL’s argument is that it will regenerate the area and produce jobs. But we are also told by the Mayor and TfL that the bridge is a local one intended to end the isolation of Thamesmead.  We are told that it is not the strategic link which was the intention of its predecessor, the East London River Crossing.  ELRC was proposed as a major strategic route linking the Channel Tunnel, the A2/M2 and A20/M20 in the south with the Dockland regeneration area on the north side of the Thames and the M11/M1.  Whilst direct links to the trunk road network south of the river are poor, the Bridge would link directly to the major trunk road network on the north side.  If the bridge is a local road, why is it six lanes?

Traffic and congestion

The TGB is part of a package of three proposals in the Mayor’s strategy - the others being the Woolwich Rail Tunnel and a third road crossing at Blackwall.  The crossing at Blackwall would clearly be a relief for the existing congested tunnels and tunnel approaches.  The north bound tunnel cannot take all types of heavy goods vehicles which currently use alternative routes.  For them the Thames Gateway Bridge might be an attractive proposition. There is clearly a problem at Blackwall.  There is an imbalance in capacity between the approach roads and the tunnels themselves which leads to the bottlenecks and tailbacks to Kidbrooke and beyond.  This will certainly worsen with the predicted growth and regeneration of the Thames Gateway and the predicted increase in the level of traffic using the Channel Tunnel, 30% of whose inward commercial traffic is destined for central London.  If the Thames Gateway Bridge is built first, lorries caught in the Blackwall tailbacks will inevitably seek alternative routes and use the Bridge with a devastating impact on local roads.

Any increase in capacity of the highway system will increase traffic, but building a new road link where none exists will not just lead to a diversion of existing traffic or anticipated increased traffic flows, it will generate new traffic that otherwise would not be there.  It will also encourage a modal shift from public transport to the private car.

Other witnesses have referred to the 1994 SACTRA Report which, from case studies, shows that new highway capacity has resulted in a short-term increase in traffic of up to 20% and a longer-term increase of up to 40%.  What would the impact of this be on local roads in Plumstead for example?  Plumstead Road is already unable to cope with the levels of traffic in peak hours and the bus lane has had to be suspended in order to avoid grid-lock.  And this proposed bridge would be the reverse of the Blackwall problem where the capacity of the approach roads exceeds the capacity of the tunnels.  The Bridge is proposed to be six lanes – the biggest river crossing in London - which suggests it is being built for a higher volume of traffic than just local people and the capacity of the bridge far exceeds the capacity of the roads which will feed it and which it will feed.

The resulting problems will fuel demands for this congestion to be relieved and re-open pressure to build the East London River Crossing.  And I would remind the Mayor and this Inquiry that the Mayor’s opposition to the East London River Crossing was not solely based on the need to protect and save Oxleas Wood it was based on the damage to the environment that would result from the additional traffic generated by the Bridge.

Health & Environment

The area around Thamesmead, Abbey Wood and Plumstead already suffers from atmospheric pollution with excessively high rates of asthma and respiratory disease. Whilst some of this can be attributed to local industrial and incineration processes there is no doubt that motor vehicle emissions are a major contributory factor. NOx levels in some parts of the area are already unacceptably high.  Research also shows that Suspended Particulate Matter can have serious adverse health impacts even at relatively low concentrations and SPM has a greater impact than most other pollutants.  SPM is largely traffic generated and has a profound impact on cardio-vascular and respiratory morbidity & mortality.  Particularly at risk are children.

Evidence has been submitted from supposed health experts that unemployment is an indicator of poor health and that job creation will improve public health.  I cannot argue with that in general terms, but how do those health experts calculate the number of jobs that will be created, what quality of jobs they will be and who will access them?  This is an area I will address later but how have the health experts who have commented on these bridge proposals weighed up or measured the possible good health impacts of higher levels of employment against the known health hazards of air and noise pollution?  I would ask the Inquiry to reject any suggestion that this proposed bridge is good for people’s health.

Regeneration and employment

Figures have been bandied about concerning the supposed economic benefits of this bridge but without any meaningful analysis.  The initial Mayor’s Transport Strategy claimed that the three crossings would produce 48,000 jobs in the Thames Gateway and Lee Valley, but nowhere does it explain how these will be created nor does it address the fundamental issues which should go with a discussion of job creation such as what kind of jobs, the local skills base, the need for education and training.  If there are new jobs but a deficiency of skills in the local labour market, this will just encourage the transfer in of people with the necessary skills, perhaps commuting long distances, taking advantage of the new road.

The 48,000 jobs figure appears, however, to have been dropped to 9,700 but it is generally accepted that most of these will result from public transport improvements.

Conflict with Government and Mayor’s Strategy and Alternatives

And where has the government’s and the Mayor’s commitment to sustainable development gone?  Perhaps we should question the need for increased opportunities to cross the river.  More river crossings would enable more people from south of the river access to the increased employment opportunities in Newham and Tower Hamlets.  But increasing access for people from Greenwich and Bexley does not necessarily increase employment.  It means they will be competing for jobs with people from those areas.  What we need is a strategy to create local jobs in Greenwich and Bexley for local people, reducing the need for long journeys to work.  There is every possibility that increasing access across the river will actually increase car dependency and suck jobs out of our local economy. It will provide easier access for the more affluent to highly paid jobs in the City using Thamesmead and the bridge as the through-route.  It would also encourage car owners to make greater use of their cars and shop further afield, damaging local retailers and small businesses.

Those who need the jobs most are the least likely to have access to a car.  For the most deprived in our community, local jobs and local education and training and investment in housing are the key priorities, not bridges.   Surely the strategy should be to create jobs and sustainable communities on both sides of the river.

There is no evidence anywhere that building bridges or new roads necessarily leads to job generation. There is substantial evidence that it leads to greater car use, more car journeys and a shift from public transport all of which are contrary to the government’s and the Mayor’s declared strategies.

Tolls

TfL says that it will address the problem of people using the Gateway Bridge as an alternative to Blackwall or as a strategic link between the trunk road systems on both sides of the Thames and raise significant revenue to finance the scheme.  If local people are to be charged very low fees and long distance travellers sufficiently high fees to deter them from using the bridge, where is the income?   And what would a reasonable toll level be for local people?  And why should people in one of the poorest parts of London have to pay to cross the river when those in more affluent parts don’t?  And how do you define who is local? Is it people in Belvedere, Abbey Wood & Thamesmead or does it include those in the leafy, affluent suburbs on the Bromley borders?  And if there are to be different levels of tolls how will it be policed?  Why were these issues not included in TfL’s consultation?

Conclusion

It would appear that the Mayor’s Strategy has been highjacked by the “Roads Lobby” and all of the valiant work of the ODPM and the London Development Agency’s Success through Diversity strategy and plans to create sustainable communities has been thrown out of the window.

We are presented with a scheme which provides no evidence of job creation or economic regeneration, which will inevitably lead to increased volumes of traffic, increased levels of congestion and pollution, and higher morbidity and mortality.
And unless attitudes change in favour of sustainable development change this project will lead to an almost certain inevitability of the re-introduction of the former East London River Crossing driving its way through or under Oxleas Wood to connect with the A2 at Falconwood.

Since this application was called in and an Inquiry established, the Government has announced its intention to proceed with Cross Rail, with the major interchange on the south-east spur at Abbey Wood.  What impact will this decision and the building of this heavy-rail link across the Thames have on regeneration in the area? And what impact does it have on any cost-benefit analysis of building the Thames Gateway Bridge.  I would suggest this Inquiry be suspended until that analysis has been carried out.