BACKGROUND

When the M25 orbital motorway around London was completed in 1986, the two Dartford tunnels provided a vital link in the national road network. Traffic on the roadway soon exceeded the maximum designed capacity of 65,000 vehicles per day on average, and forecasts predicted annual throughput in excess of 40 million vehicles. A new toll bridge at Dartford was therefore required to provide needed additional capacity along the M25 motorway to the two existing tolled tunnels, one of which opened in 1963 and the second in 1980. Exhibit 3.5 below presents a site map of the location of the bridge relative to the surrounding highway network.

Exhibit 3.5 QE2 Dartford Bridge Site Map

In March 1986, the Government published guidelines inviting the submission of private sector bids for the design, construction, and operation of a third crossing of the River Thames between Thurrock and Dartford. The expansion of the existing twin tunnel crossing of the River Thames at Dartford represented the first fully privatized highway infrastructure project to be constructed in England in the twentieth century, based on a 20-year design-build-finance-operate PPP contract.