00:00The Chancellor in Kent with the Dartford Crossing in view and NIMBY's in her sights.
00:06Flanked by local Labour MPs, Rachel Reeves pledged to cut down the number of legal challenges
00:13to big infrastructure projects and how long they take to go through the courts.
00:20Projects like the Lower Thames Crossing, which has taken the best part of two decades,
00:26to get moving while traffic in the local area has slowed to a standstill.
00:32We're reducing the time that judicial reviews take by six months to make it easier to get projects
00:39started, to get the spades in the ground. And of course, Lower Thames Crossing has been talked about
00:44for 16 years. There's 350,000 pages of planning application. That's longer than the complete
00:51works of Shakespeare. And we want to make it easier to actually get these projects started.
00:56The announcement will see judges with planning expertise appointed to cases and set court dates
01:03designed to pin down those involved. For the man leading the charge on the Lower Thames Crossing,
01:10the proposals are welcome, though hints it won't get the tunnel built any faster.
01:16Now it's been given the green light. Every major infrastructure program in the UK now has to deal
01:21with big judicial reviews or legal challenges. Luckily, actually on the LTC, we didn't, but every
01:26other program will. So what the Chancellor's doing will definitely make life easier. It's coming.
01:32It will take a while though. So, you know, don't think of anything quick until probably 2034.
01:37But the local MP for Dartford does say the plans could prove pivotal in the early stages of other future
01:45projects. It's all part of that big agenda for the government to get infrastructure built as
01:52quickly as possible and to shorten the planning time scales. And it's brilliant that she's chosen
01:56the Dartford Crossing and the Lower Thames Crossing as her example of the way government can speed up
02:02these really important projects. Regular commuters here in the local area will still face years of
02:08congestion before the Lower Thames Crossing is complete. The real backdrop to an announcement that only holds
02:17some of the answers for getting Kent building. Olly Leader in Dartford.
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