Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of traffic in and around Dartford in the last five years.

The Department continues to work with National Highways to monitor levels of traffic on strategic roads in and around Dartford, with a focus particularly on the Dartford Thurrock Crossing. The design capacity of the Crossing is 135,000 vehicles per day, but it is not uncommon for over 180,000 vehicles to use the Crossing each day with over 50 million vehicles making the crossing each year.

In four of the last five years (2015/16 to 2018/19) traffic volumes have increased at the crossing (by 8%, 2.7%, 3.1% and 0.5% in those four years compared to the previous year), and volumes reduced in 2.5% in 2019/20. Traffic levels were affected by the pandemic but appear to be returning to pre-pandemic levels.