Funding shortfall sees major works at Rotherhithe Tunnel put off until 2026

By Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter

Plans to close the Rotherhithe Tunnel for several months to enable extensive repairs have been put off until 2026 at the earliest due to a lack of funding.

Last year Transport for London (TfL) said that the refurbishment of the 116-year-old Thames road tunnel could take place as early as 2025, after the new Silvertown Tunnel has opened in the spring.

But the transport authority has now confirmed that the tunnel’s nine-month closure will only take place from April 2026, at the very earliest, due to a lack of “long term funding” from the Government. 

The Department for Transport (DfT) said the tunnel’s maintenance is TfL’s responsibility, and pointed out that they have just been allocated almost £500million in the Treasury’s recent Budget.

The Rotherhithe Tunnel, which links its eponymous South London neighbourhood with Limehouse, is suffering from a range of issues affecting its mechanical, electrical and communication systems.

TfL has assured drivers that the tunnel “continues to operate safely, under enhanced day to day maintenance” but that it requires a nine-month programme of repairs to ensure it can “remain open in the long term”. 

At the end of 2023, TfL had said the repair programme could only happen with “more support from Government”. The total cost of repairs was in 2020 estimated to be somewhere between £116million and £178million, though the cost will have risen substantially due to sharp inflation since the pandemic.

But despite being allocated £485million in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent Budget for the next financial year – almost double the £250million committed for the current year by her Tory predecessor Jeremy Hunt – TfL said that it still needs “long term” funding over “multiple years” in order to start the repairs.

The transport authority hopes that multi-year funding will be announced in the Chancellor’s ‘comprehensive spending review’, which is expected to take place in June 2025. 

The review is anticipated to cover a minimum of three years of day-to-day spending, and also set capital budgets for five years.

Any funding announced would only take effect from the 2026/27 financial year, meaning that the very earliest the tunnel could close for repairs would be April 2026.

The mayor last month told the London Assembly that the UK has been left with a “legacy of financial mismanagement” from the previous Government, a “£22billion black hole” in public finances and an economy which has been “struggling to grow” for far too long.

But, Keith Prince, City Hall Conservatives’ transport spokesman, said: “The continuing deterioration of the Rotherhithe Tunnel only inflates any cost of repair.

“We have asked the mayor time and time again to tell us what he has asked the Government for and he won’t tell us, so Londoners have no clue what representations he has made about the need to carry out this work.”

Pictured top: The southern entrance to the Rotherhithe Tunnel, pictured in 2018 (Picture: Google Street View)