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A look inside the Silvertown tunnel before opening

Tom Edwards
Transport correspondent, London•@BBCTomEdwards
BBC Inside view of the new Silvertown tunnelBBC
The new tunnel will open on Monday 7 April

The new Silvertown Tunnel is due to open next week, with the introduction of tolls for using this river crossing as well as the existing Blackwall tunnel.

Transport for London (TfL) says it will improve the air quality and reliability of the Blackwall tunnel, which currently closes about 700 times a year.

But campaigners have claimed congestion and pollution will increase.

This is what it's like inside the widest tunnel in the UK (as the engineers told me).

The control room monitoring the Silvertown tunnel
The control room monitoring the Silvertown tunnel

The first thing you notice when you go into the new, controversial, Silvertown tunnel is its size - it is huge.

Putting any controversies to one side, it is undoubtedly a magnificent piece of engineering.

But there is a lot of opposition about the plans to let large HGVs use the bus lane through the tunnel.

Victoria Rance, a campaigner from Stop Silvertown Tunnel Traffic and Pollution, said it was "going to bring huge juggernauts" through Greenwich into Newham.

"These are things that we've never seen before, past thousands of kids at schools - how can we be doing this in 2025":[]}