Ambitious plan to bridge Channel

Press, 2 December 1981, Page 8

Ambitious plan to bridge Channel

NZPA-Reuter London The chairman of the British Steel Corporation: said yesterday that a consortium would be formed to raise £ 3.8 billion (SNZB,B billion) for a proposed scheme to build a combined bridge and tunnel to link England and France. The project, the most ambitious of several being examined by the British and French Governments, dwarfs a tunnel plan suggested by the national'railways of both countries .. costing £B5O million. ($1970 million). •British Steel and British Shipbuilders, both State-

owned, will be the leading partners in the consortium to build the 35km "Euroroute” link across the Channel, B.S.C.’s chairman (Mr lan MacGregor) told a news con-. ference. It will: also include an American company, Raymond International Builders. The plan envisages bridges from the English and French shores to man-made islands and a 17:5km tunnel carrying road and rail traffic beneath one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The islands would be . il.'2km from England and 6.4 km off France.

. Mr MacGregor said he believed there would be no difficulty in raising the finance on domestic and international money markets. He said the plan was the most effective one put forward and would need no money from taxpayers or the Government. The five-year project would provide 100,000 jobs in depressed steel-mak-ing areas of Britain, he told reporters. Earlier this year the British and French Governments said they were reviving plans to build a Channel

tunnel, first mooted by Napoleon in 1802. A previous British Government actually began work on a tunnel only to abandon it in 1974 because of soaring costs; French and British transport officials are studying all the proposals and a decision is expected early next year. Ferry operators, who have lost more than £3O million (SNZ7O million) this year in a price-cutting'war, oppose the tunnel and say they could easily undercut anything charged by tunnel operators in a price war.