THE lead campaigner in the borough's battle to stop or mitigate the impact of the planned Lower Thames Crossing has described the latest moves by National Highways as 'despicable'.

Laura Blake of the Thames Crossing Action Group was speaking after the government quango running the multi-billion pound project announced its latest consultation plans and issued statements about the latest phase of the project and its impact on the area. The consultation begins today (Thursday, 12 May)..

Ms Blake said: "I can honestly say that looking through the latest Lower Thames Crossing Local Refinement Consultation just leaves me with more questions, and a fast-growing list of inadequacies.

"I have found so much contradictory, misleading, questionable info, and so many inadequacies, some that we have reported time and time again in previous consultations.

"From what I have seen so far it is clear that this is not just a small local refinement consultation there is a lot more to it, with changes that will have big impacts to our communities.

"Nothing about the impacts of PM2.5, in fact the air and noise pollution assessment data is not going to be presented publicly until Development Consent Order stage, it's despicable.

"They want us to believe that they are reducing carbon emissions during construction, but provide no evidence or figures that I have found so far to back up these claims."