Politics

Would a Boris bridge to Northern Ireland work? Engineers have their say


Boris Johnson is facing ridicule after championing the idea of building a bridge connecting Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The prime minister has instructed Treasury and Department for Transport officials to look into the feasibility of his proposed link across the Irish Sea, says The Scotsman.

And during a visit to the River Thames last Thursday to mark International Shipping Week, Johnson told London schoolchildren that he was thinking “about building a bridge from Stranraer in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland”. He added: “That would be very good. It would only cost about £15bn.”

But the PM’s plan has been labelled “bonkers” by architects, reports The Guardian.

The eminent engineer behind London’s Millennium Bridge told the newspaper that it was foolish to put a price on the plan before a proper design had been completed.

Chris Wise, who also helped to construct the 2012 Olympic Velodrome, said: “It’s socially admirable but technically clueless. If Boris wants to stay prime minister, he needs to stop promising figures before he can deliver them.

“If everything from the Olympics to HS2 are anything to go by, to quote the number and the price of any of these publicly funded projects this early without a design, in my view, is bonkers.” 

Dr John McKinley, a senior lecturer in environmental engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, agrees that the Irish Sea bridge plan is based on “dubious economics”.

“The idea has been floating around since the 1880s and seems to come around every 30 to 40 years,” said McKinley. “Connecting Belfast to Glasgow, lovely places though I think they both are, isn’t as obviously a good thing as connecting London to Paris.”

Johnson first raised the Irish Sea bridge idea in a 2018 interview, saying: “What we need to do is build a bridge between our islands. Why don’t we? Why don’t we?”

His comments prompted one engineer to write a letter to The Times warning that the plan was “about as feasible as building a bridge to the Moon”.

This isn’t Johnson’s first attempted foray into the world of bridge building.

As London mayor, he spaffed (I believe that’s his favoured term) £43m on a never-built Garden Bridge” in London, says the Architects Journal’s Simon Aldous.

“Boris Johnson’s modus operandi seems to be well established now: waffle vacuously and then, if something more substantial seems necessary, propose a bridge,” Aldous adds.

Commenting on reports of the Tory leader’s latest idea, a Downing Street spokesperson told Channel 4 News: “This PM has made no secret of his support for infrastructure projects that increase connectivity for people and particularly those that strengthen the [UK] union.” 



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