The Times – 63,000 reasons we struggle to build anything

The Dartford Crossing, as anybody who uses it regularly will agree, is an arterial section of the seventh circle of hell. In order to mitigate the torture it inflicts on those who depend on it, National Highways, the agency charged with building big roads, wants to dig another tunnel, known as the Lower Thames Crossing. In 2017 it submitted a planning application. In 2020, the planning inspectorate demanded more information, so the application was resubmitted. According to the publication New Civil Engineer, it is now 63,000 pages long. The process has taken five and a half years and cost the taxpayer £267 million. That’s just for starters: the inspectors haven’t even begun their examination of the application.

In an article for The Times, Mustafa Latif-Aramesh highlights the negative impact of the UK’s bureaucratic approach on the growth of green-energy infrastructure.

To read the full article, please visit The Times.