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Private tunnel plan for M25 'foul-up'
Page 8
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WHILE all the talk is about a Channel link, a private enterprise group headed by civil engineering contractor John Mowlem proposes to build another Dartford Tunnel under the Thames.
Announcing the proposal this week Mowlem chairman Philip Beck said that the opening of the M25 London ringway's three lane carriageways feeding into the two lane twin bores of the existing Dartford Tunnel is creating "a major foul-up".
Traffic has risen from 12 million vehicles a year to 20 million since 1983, and is
forecast to rise to 24 million by 1991 when delays would be intolerable.
Mowlem's group, which includes the Dutch State marine engineering design bureau, wants to build a submerged tube tunnel parallel to the existing bores on their western side.
If the proposal is given the go-ahead by the Government. Mowlem's group would take over the existing bores from the Essex and Kent County Councils, including the out
standing million debt.
At the earliest, construction on the new tunnel would start next August and would be completed in December 1989 at a construction cost of 5:50 million to 5:100 million.
Mowlem would form a Dartford Tunnel Company to operate the new and existing tunnels, collecting the tolls for the next 25 years.
Toll income currently generates 1:12 million a year. At the end of the 25-year period the tunnels would be handed
over to the Government.
Beck says the tolls would rise only in line with inflation — there would be no real increase. He adds that his proposal offers a speedy solution and one in which private enterprise rather than the Government takes the risk.
The FTA said this week that it welcomes the Mowlem proposal as a way to solve traffic congestion at Dartford, but it is unhappy that it perpetuates the idea of charging tolls.