The Planning Inspectorate, the government agency responsible for examining planning applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects, will today hold a preliminary hearing at the start of a planning inquiry into Thames Water’s proposed £4.2bn Tideway Tunnel.

Jan Bessell has been appointed as the Lead Member of the panel of the Examining authority set up to examine the application for a Development Consent Order which will hold today’s meeting. The Planning Inspectorate has received 37 requests to speak at the preliminary meeting.

The purpose of the preliminary meeting is to enable views to be put to the Inspectorate about the way in which the application is to be examined i.e. the meeting deals only with procedure and not with the merits of the application. The merits of the application will be considered once the examination starts after the preliminary meeting has closed.

Statements of Common Ground are due to be discussed at today’s meeting, with the aim of providing factual information identifying areas of agreement and disagreement and highlighting key issues.

Ahead of today’s meeting the Examining authority made an initial assessment of the principal issues arising from consideration of the application documents and relevant representations received concerning the Thames Tideway Tunnel between Acton Storm Tanks and Abbey Mills Pumping Station London. The assessment shows that Thames is facing significant challenges on a wide range of issues, including :

• Air quality and emissions
• Biodiversity, biological environment and ecology
• Coastal/river change
• Compulsory acquisition and related matters
• Design, landscape and visual impact
• Flood risk and climate change
• Historic environment
• Noise and disturbance
• Rationale for the selection of worksites and drive strategies
• Socio-economic effects
• Traffic, travel and transportation
• Water quality and resources

On flood risk and climate change, concerns include:

• Appropriate adaptation and consequential impacts and mitigation
• Potential impact of settlement on flood defence assets
• The extent to which design and landscape measures maximise permeability and the potential for preventing rainwater from entering the sewerage system
• Lifetime and capacity of new infrastructure
• Any update required against UK Climate Projections

With regard to water quality and resources, concerns cover:

• The effects of proposed project on water quality – discharges during construction, maintenance periods and operation
• The effects of the proposed design for reduction of discharges from each combined sewer overflow connection site
• Relationship with the River Basin Management Plans, estuary management plan and water resources management plans and the requirements of the Water Framework Directive
• Mitigation and management during construction, operational and decommissioning phases

The Examining authority has asked for Thames Water and the interested parties – which include each Local Authority, Lord Mayor of London, English Heritage, the Environment Agency, Natural England, Marine Management Organization, Port of London, Canal and River Trust, Network Rail and Transport for London - to prepare Statements of Common Ground (SoCG) in relation to some of the principal issues.

The aim of a SoCG is to agree factual information and to inform the ExA and all other Parties by identifying where there is agreement and where the differences lie at an early stage in the examination process – including matters which are not in dispute or need not be the subject of further evidence.

Unless otherwise stated or agreed, the SoCG have to agreed between Thames and the other relevant Interested Party or Parties and submitted to the Examining authority by Thames Water.

The Inspectorate said it would determine how the application would be examined “as soon as practicable” after the preliminary meeting. The Examining authority is under a duty to complete the examination of the application by the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the day after the start day. ie 12^th March 2014.

The inquiry will include a number of site visits to various locations along the proposed route for the Tunnel. If planning permission is granted – the Government could take the final decision next year – the Tunnel would then be scheduled for completion in 2026.

The Tunnel will eventually add an extra £80 a year to Thames Water customers' bills.

Critics of Thames Water’s plans would prefer to see the proposed Tunnel replaced with a range of blue-green infrastructure alternatives. The US city of Philadelphia which makes extensive use of this approach, is often cited as an example of a "model" for flood and sewage management.