The London Resort: Environmental Insights for National Highways

Assessing the risks & impacts of the visitor attraction

Plans for the London Resort promised a nationally significant visitor attraction and leisure resort, to be built on brownfield land in Kent on the south bank of the River Thames, with supporting transport and visitor reception facilities on the north bank in Essex. Dubbed the “UK’s Disneyland” the proposed resort was expected to attract up to 12.5 million visitors per year once fully open.

National Highways was a statutory consultee as part of the London Resort Development Consent Order (DCO) application, and needed to respond to the applicant’s Environmental Statement and other documents. The proposed development involved remodelling the A2 / A2260 Ebbsfleet Junction, part of the Strategic Road Network (SRN), while the construction and operation of the resort would increase traffic levels.

National Highways wanted to ensure that the applicant (London Resort Company Holdings – LRCH) considered all likely impacts on the road network and associated assets, and addressed these accordingly in the project design. If not mitigated properly, these impacts could have detrimental effects on the environment, as well as causing congestion, noise and air-quality issues for the local community.

Environmental impact assessment review and advice

National Highways asked the Jacobs SYSTRA Joint Venture (JSJV) to provide a review for each discipline within the proposal’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). SYSTRA specialists planned and carried out a detailed analysis of each EIA chapter, and provided National Highways with advice on the issues and risks to its estate and roadside neighbours.

SYSTRA also identified a number of relevant technical experts to provide ongoing consultation for National Highways, in preparation for any subsequent detailed consultations on the proposed development.

Technical notes identify key issues for National Highways

To ensure we alerted the client as quickly as possible to any likely issues associated with the development, our specialists prioritised a rapid initial review of each EIA chapter. This enabled us to quickly provide technical notes, outlining the key areas of concern.

We delivered a technical note for each EIA discipline, including socioeconomics, human health, planning, ecology, water, waste, noise, climate change, air quality, cumulative effects, soils and land quality, landscape and visual, and surface water drainage.

Our specialists used a standardised template for the technical notes, enabling the client to easily assess and compare our insights and advice across each EIA discipline.

When much of the development area was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by Natural England, the applicant issued a revised version of its Environmental Statement. Consequently, SYSTRA provided a further technical note for National Highways, outlining how these changes to the statement could impact its interests.

Detailed analysis highlights environmental areas of concern

As a result of our work, National Highways was fully briefed on all relevant environmental issues associated with the London Resort DCO application.

The technical notes issued by our team highlighted a number of potential impacts on the strategic road network, including:

• Landscape and visual: there was a lack of clarity on landscaping proposals and how they could affect the highways estate.

• Ecology: the mitigations required following the SSSI designation were not clearly addressed.

• Noise: there was potential for traffic noise to significantly impact local Noise Important Areas.

• Air quality: there was potential for traffic to significantly impact local Air Quality Management Areas.

• Flood risk: it was unclear how flood risk would be managed and how this might affect the National Highways estate.

Following these and other concerns raised by a number of consultees, the application for the London Resort DCO was officially withdrawn in March 2022. While London Resort Company Holdings looked to scale back plans and resubmit the application, a year later in March 2023 the company went into administration. There has been no indication to date since that the resort project will be restarted.

Featured image courtesy of: London Resort Holdings Company