Building bridges

SIR – I read with interest that Boris Johnson is proposing a Channel bridge between France and England (report, January 20).

A few years ago I was browsing Hazell’s Annual for 1892, which records that a proposal for such a bridge was discussed at the Iron and Steel Institute’s autumn meeting.

The timescale for the project was 10 years and the cost £34.4 million for a bridge weight of one million tons. What would that be at today’s rate? John Morgan

London SE12