Transport for London is hindering a legal challenge to the Silvertown tunnel, according to campaigners.

Stop the Silvertown Tunnel is seeking to fight the construction project with a judicial review of the contract to design, build, operate and maintain the tunnel.

The contract was awarded on 25 November, and anyone who disputes the decision has six weeks to lodge a challenge.

But TfL has delayed publication of the contracts by two weeks so far. Stop the Silvertown Tunnel say this seems like a deliberate tactic.

Victoria Rance, spokesperson for Stop the Silvertown Tunnel and Green Party parliamentary candidate for Greenwich and Woolwich, said: “Our lawyers can’t do anything until they see a contract. There’s already a ten-day delay to getting it published.

“TfL are busy redacting. We’ve got Christmas coming up and New Year. They are delaying and stalling. That’s what it feels to us.

TfL gave the contract to the Riverlinx consortium, which included Cintra, Bam PPP PGGM, Macquarie Capital and SK E&C.

Stop the Silvertown Tunnel has been a vocal opponent of the project, believing it will worsen air pollution in the area.

Victoria Rance said: “We’re going to have heavy goods vehicles passing through an area with lots of schools. That is an air pollution disaster for us.

“It’s just about business. It’s not about local people at all. It’s not about the future. It’s not about the climate emergency.

“It just seems extraordinary Sadiq Khan is going ahead with this. We’ve got a climate emergency, we’ve got ten years to sort this out.”

TfL's aim is to reduce the pressure on the nearby Blackwall tunnel. But campaigners believe the Silvertown Tunnel won't even be very effective at reducing traffic.

Jenny Bates, air pollution campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "The Silvertown tunnel would at best be a massively expensive congestion redistribution scheme – traffic might get across the river quicker, but just be held up at the next pinch points a bit further from the river on either side, adding to congestion and to air pollution in those locations.

"Even if existing congestion and air pollution would be reduced in some places, this must not be at the expense of others getting already illegal air pollution further worsened.”

A spokesperson for TfL said last week: "We will be publishing information on the contract award via the OJEU portal later this week and a redacted contract will be published on the TfL website in due course."