Review into UK infrastructure links

A tunnel between Scotland and Ireland is more viable than a bridge, according to Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy CBE.

In his first interview about leading a new review into infrastructure links between the four nations of the UK ( RAIL 916), Hendy said the ambition was to bring the nations closer together.

“My observation is that since devolution of Wales and Scotland, since the break-up of British Rail in the 1990s, no one has seriously looked at Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Welsh traffic by rail, and by sea to Northern Ireland,” he said.

Hendy will produce an interim report in January, with full conclusions next July or August. He conceded that the study was “not without political overtones”, given how much decision-making in transport is devolved to the Scottish Government and the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies.

When the study was announced by Boris Johnson, newspapers seized on his renewed interest in a fixed link to Northern Ireland.

“If a fixed link is anything, it’s a tunnel rather than a bridge,” said Hendy. “There are a number of days a year when I wouldn’t want to be on a bridge because of the weather. If you look at the distance, it really is no further than the Channel Tunnel.

“There was a plan to do this in 1900, showing exactly the route of the tunnel and suggesting it should be an electric railway. I am not going to get any further than finding out whether it is feasible, how long it might take, and how much it might cost. A project that size couldn’t be started in several years.”

Asked whether he was being asked to look at infrastructure improvements to hold together a union that was fracturing in other ways, he said: “I think the Department for Transport would agree Anglo-Scottish communications by rail and road have not seriously been considered in 20 years. There is a gap in thinking about how HS2 best serves Scotland. There is evidently work needed on the West Coast Main Line, and on the East Coast, in train capacity.

“If you look at Welsh northsouth connections, both the railway operated by Transport for Wales and the A49 road actually connect largely through England. There is a logic for looking at this on a wider basis.

“Boris asked me to do it himself. The truth is: I wasn’t really asked - I was told to do it. It’s not unreasonable. I am paid a lot of money to chair Network Rail. I am at the Government’s disposal.

“I think it is a genuinely interesting challenge. I’m not the first person to look at it.

But I’m the first to look at it comprehensively.”