Reviving Belfast-heysham passenger ferry an alternative worth looking at

THE current tunnel vs bridge debate and the spending of £20bn (minimum) on such a link to south-west Scotland is, of course, understandable: we do, at times, feel cut off in Northern Ireland and with cheap air travel off the agenda for a good while, it’s not surprising that alternatives are being sought for passenger and freight to the rest of the uk— protocol or not.

However, may i suggest anew alternative to tunnel or bridge? What about providing a quality way to travel from belfast tot her es tofu k—the revival of the Belfast-heysham passenger, car and freight ferry route?

Stena Line already runs a freight service on this route. With a new fleet of large, fast ferries, similar to the new ships on the Liverpool run, the journey time to Hey sham could be under six hours. with four such ferries, there could be two or three sailings each way every day.

Work would certainly be needed and a new terminal built to make the port of Heysham suitable for larger vessels, but it is near both the M6 and the West Coast railway line, so the onward infrastructure needed would be a tiny fraction of that required to upgrade the A75 from Stranraer to Carlisle.

The new ships would cost about £2bn and maybe the same again for the infrastructure. The rest of the £20bn (if that’s available), as Nichola Mallon pointed out (News, Feb 15), could go towards upgrading our internal links within Northern Ireland.

Worth another feasibility study?

COLM FLANAGAN Bangor, Co Down