CHANNEL TUNNEL

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 13

CHANNEL TUNNEL

Plans for the long-mooted tunnel to link Britain and France under the Channel seem likely to go ahead at last after nearly 170 years of discussions and postponements. The Channel Tunnel Company has announced that the three competing groups submitting proposals for finance and construction have joined together to form a new group, which has put joint proposals to the British and French governments. Something of the project’s vexed history was recalled in the 8.8. C. report of the announcement. The first plan for the tunnel was proposed in 1802 by a French engineer, Albert Mathieu. England and France had just concluded what proved to be a very uneasy truce between the Revolutionary War which began in 1793 and the Napoleonic War which finished in 1815. But when fighting was resumed in 1803 nothing further was heard of the plan. The main stumbling block has always been the military veto, and this was not lifted until 1955 when Mr Macmillan, the British Minister of Defence, said somewhat casually in the House of Commons that there could no longer be an objection on that ground. The improved prospects for the tunnel have nothing directly to do with Common Market negotiations, said the chairman of the Company, Mr Leo d’Erlanger, in a reply to the 8.8. C. reporter. But if Britain joins the Market the tunnel would be a “natural”; and if she did not join, the tunnel would help her to be competitive. If the new group’s proposals are accepted, the great tunnel scheme will be carried out by an international consortium under joint British and French leadership. Construction could start in 1972 and would take about five years, and the cost would be in the region of £250,000,000.