WITH less than two weeks to the closure of public consultation on the route of the proposed Lower Thames Crossing through Thurrock residents have been issued with a detailed guide by local campaigners.

Members of the Thames Crossing Action group are calling on residents to submit individual letters, rather than 'cut and paste' comments as they believe repetition will undermine the validity.

The group says: "Please do help us out when you respond to the consultation and do not copy and paste anything from our website and social media posts, please put your own comments in your own words. 

"The reason we ask you to please do this is because back in 2016 there were some template letters created to help those that were asking for assistance with responding to the consultation.

"Highways England lumped together 13,000 of these responses and counted them as one campaign response. 

"They have done it before and they will do it again, so we need to be sure not to give them that opportunity.  Imagine if all 13,000 of those responses back in 2016 had been considered 13,000 individual responses. 

"That would have been an extra 12,999 responses opposing the LTC back then. But we can't go back we can only go forward so let's make sure every response counts by everyone ensuring their response is in their own words so it will be counted as an individual response!"

You can read the step-by-step guide produced by the group HERE