No need for new Celtic connection
THE idea of a cross-Channel bridge was rejected since it would span one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. That’s why the Chunnel was built, but it hasn’t stopped Boris Johnson making a nuisance of himself refloating the bridge idea. As soon as mention of an English Channel bridge is made, so the idea of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland is mooted as ‘it’s only a few miles’. While that distance is much shorter than many existing bridges, there is a big problem – Beaufort’s Dyke. It’s a submarine trench right in the path of the proposed bridge and is as much as 900ft deep – far deeper than the English Channel. It is also littered with an estimated million tons of bombs discarded after the Second World War. Many of the shells contain phosgene gas. When work was carried out on a gas pipeline in 1995, phosphorus sticks from incendiary bombs started washing up on the shores of Northern Ireland and South-West Scotland. When they dried out, they sometimes spontaneously burst into flames.
JIM DONALD, Ayr. THE idea of a bridge between Scotland and Ireland is crazy. The North Channel is narrow, but deep with exceptional currents and it is a busy shipping lane. In the United States, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge features a central tunnel section to allow giant aircraft carriers to access their base in Norfolk, Virginia. This concept is not possible here because of Beaufort’s Dyke, a huge underwater trench it would be impossible to tunnel under. And it just so happens that the dyke is full of wartime munitions, dumped in their millions. It would be cheaper to drain the sea than build a bridge! ANDREW COULTER, Glasgow. IT’S easy to draw lines on a map marking the possible route of a bridge to Northern Ireland but we couldn’t afford to upgrade the A75 and A77 roads which would lead to this bridge, never mind the structure itself. Even ‘the greatest bridge in the world’, the Queensferry Crossing, is hampered by lack of infrastructure on both the Fife and Lothian sides.
HENRY MARTIN, Dalgety Bay, Fife.