Key crossing for industry

May 9 2006 By Evening Gazette

News flash. Court case won. New crossing confirmed. Those were the words that greeted me on a sign as I drove up to Tyneside at the weekend.

And I cannot tell you how pleased I was to know that - at long last - a second Tyne Tunnel is about to get under way.

Good and efficient transport systems are important if business and industry are to prosper and thrive.

As has been highlighted by the Go For Jobs campaign, which is being championed by the Evening Gazette and the North East Chamber of Commerce, delays in improving road networks can seriously harm the regeneration of an area and along with that the prospect of much-needed jobs.

Work on the £185m cross-river link had been expected to begin next year and be completed by 2009.

But a Friends of the Earth campaigner legally contested the plan.

Now they have lost the case and the wheels for a second tunnel can be put in motion.

As I have a Tyne Tunnel permit I got a letter from the operators recently and part of that pointed out that at peak times, more than 3,000 vehicles an hour are using the tunnel when it had been built to cope with about 2,000.

So no wonder at those times there are big tailbacks of standing traffic queueing to get through.

What cost must there have been to business over the years caused by this build-up of traffic?

Time is money and how much must be wasted by people on work journeys and lorries carrying business supplies getting caught up in the long traffic jams that build up as they hit the bottleneck caused by a single tunnel?

I have to make regular journeys through the tunnel for family reasons so I for one - and I am sure many business leaders too - am over the moon that the second crossing is to go-ahead.

I can't wait for it to become a reality and am quite prepared to pay an increased toll - it has been reported that it will go up to £2.10 from the present £1 for a car.