Having previously promised to make the 14-mile scheme Britain鈥檚 greenest road, National Highways has today declared that the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) will be 鈥渢he first major infrastructure programme in Britain to be carbon neutral in construction鈥�.
It won鈥檛 be of course, which they admit.
National Highways says that the actual aim is to cut the construction carbon footprint by 70%, which is achievable by using all the latest ecological machinery and materials, and then offset the other 30% 鈥� spending public money just to hit a target.
To help with the hype and to show that they mean business, a hydrogen-powered JCB backhoe loader has been sent from its Staffordshire test-bed to site in Kent to help Skanska with LTC pre-construction survey work near Gravesend. The machine is operated by Flannery Plant Hire, powered by hydrogen fuel from Ryze, a Jo Bamford venture.
The live deployment of the machine follows a trial at Gallagher鈥檚 Hermitage Quarry near Maidstone earlier this year. The JCB machine is still going through testing and validation but the manufacturer hopes to go into full production at its Rocester factory in Staffordshire sometime next year.
Matt Palmer, National Highways鈥� executive director for the Lower Thames Crossing, said: 鈥淥ur commitment to being carbon neutral and restoring nature will prove that the British construction industry has the vision and skills to build the projects needed to drive growth in a way that enhances, not impacts, the local environment. It鈥檚 an incredibly exciting moment as our ambitions to create a local workforce combine with this cutting-edge technology to put UK construction at the forefront of global innovation.鈥�
Steve Fox, JCB鈥檚 managing director for global major accounts, said: 鈥淭his is a huge milestone for the construction industry. For the first time on a major infrastructure project, hydrogen has proven its worth on site as a carbon-neutral fuel in a working JCB construction machine. We are very excited about the future opportunities for hydrogen-powered machinery on the Lower Thames Crossing project.鈥�
The project received planning permission in March 2025 but the government is not yet prepared to put its money where its mouth is. The Treasury is hoping for some private finance to help out with the cost. No word yet on progress there.
National Highways, however, is still hoping for a 2026 start of construction, for completion in the early 2030s.
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