The cost incurred so far: Lower Thames Crossing
Case reference EIR2025/00604
Received 26 March 2025
Published 17 September 2025
Request
I have read many conflicting news story on how much it has cost so far for the Lower Thames project. Please provide the following
1) the total amount spent so far on the Lower Thames Crossing project
2) Line by line breakdown of the costs incurred so far, the most detailed breakdown available, provide this on a monthly or quarterly basis if possible.
3) provide a list of every supplier and contractor who was paid for this project.
4) contracts signed between contractors and the contracting authority.
Response
1. The total amount spent so far on the Lower Thames Crossing project
Please see the breakdown of spend on the Lower Thames Crossing below:
|
Total cost (Million) |
|
|
Planning costs (each of the two, separate DCO applications) |
266.9 |
|
Public and stakeholder consultations |
28.9 |
|
Technical surveys and investigations |
412.2 |
|
Land purchasing costs |
160.2 |
|
The three major National Highways contracts |
21.3 |
|
Other costs related to development of the DCO application, establishment of the commercial and project integration teams and non-recoverable VAT payments. |
161.1 |
|
Design and construction planning and works, project office space, utilities engagement and ancillary project such as Hole Farm woodland, community projects and non-recoverable VAT payments. |
110.4 |
|
Options |
27.8 |
|
Total |
1188.8 |
2. Line by line breakdown of the costs incurred so far, the most detailed breakdown available, provide this on a monthly or quarterly basis if possible.
I can confirm that National Highways does not hold this information, because the information is held in over 200 suppliers and not held in the format requested and as such this part of your request has been refused under Regulation 12(4)(a) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 as information not held.
3. Provide a list of every supplier and contractor who was paid for this project.
The attached document provides a comprehensive list of all suppliers—more than 200 in total—who have been engaged on the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) Programme to deliver services or undertake work since the Government directed National Highways (then operating as the Highways Agency) to explore an alternative crossing over the River Thames in 2016.
4. Contracts signed between contractors and the contracting authority.
The information has been withheld under Regulation 12(4)(b) which applies to requests which we find to be ‘manifestly unreasonable’. In this case this is due to the excessive cost of providing the information which you have requested.
This is because we hold over 350 contracts, we estimate that each contract will take between 5 minutes to an hour to locate and extract the contracts depending on the age of the contract which would require a significant amount of time.
ICO guidance on the reasonable cost of compliance under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) sets the limit for central government at 24 hours of staff time (£600) and at 18 hours of staff time (£450) for all other public authorities. The ICO advises that, under the Environmental Information Regulations the FOI cost of compliance limit may be referred to when considering whether a request may be “manifestly unreasonable” and represent a “disproportionate burden” on the public authority.
National Highways is a public authority and not a central government department however we use the upper limit of staff time when considering the cost of compliance under EIR.
For the reasons articulated above, we have calculated that the cost of complying with your request will exceed 24 hours of staff time. We believe that the exception at Regulation 12(4)(b) applies, and we are refusing question 4 on this basis.
The application of this EIR exception to our EIR obligations is dependent on the results of a Public Interest test (PIT). Conducting a PIT involves weighing up the public interest arguments for and against disclosure of the information requested. A copy of the PIT is attached.
You are welcome to submit a new request for a narrower category of information. If you were to reduce the scope of your request, for example by limiting it to a specific supplier, it may be that we could comply with that request without Regulation 12(4)(b) being engaged, although we cannot guarantee that will be the case.
Documents
This is National Highways' response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.