Could HS2 succeed like the Humber Bridge?
SIR – Although smaller in scale and cost than HS2 (Letters, January 22), the Humber Bridge is instructive on the subject of large public projects and the forces that start, shape or stop them.
Demands for a bridge over the Humber date back to at least the Thirties and increased in the Sixties as the volume of traffic and frequency of accidents on the poor roads around the upper estuary became a national concern.
In 1966 the bridge project was approved by Harold Wilson’s government, which badly needed votes in Nottinghamshire, East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. The bridge, then the longest single-span suspension in the world, was opened in 1981. By this time, the road network in the region had improved greatly and the bridge was seen as a white elephant.
Between 1985 and 1990, my wife and I walked across it occasionally. It was a very quiet, peaceful walk, although a slow increase in traffic was detectable. By 2006, there were 120,000 vehicle crossings per week, and this number has no doubt grown significantly since then. In 2012, the government wrote off the bridge debt balance of £150 million and the toll was reduced from £3 – once the highest in the country – to £1.50. The beautiful bridge will stand and take more traffic for many years to come. Did all the costbenefit work tell the whole story? Does anyone now regret building the bridge?
In the end, did a purely political decision give us a significant asset and source of pride that cost-benefit analysis alone would not?
Patrick Staines
Evesham, Worcestershire