The estimated cost is £15 billion.
The Telegraph are reporting that Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has backed plans to build a £15 billion bridge that will connect mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.
The proposed link bridge will reportedly run across the Irish Sea and it has been tipped to run from Portpatrick, Scotland to either Larne or Bangor, Northern Ireland.
The same report also states that this initiative has been backed by the Democratic Unionist Party.
Granted, these reports should be viewed with a healthy degree of cynicism because earlier this year, Mr Johnson also called for a similar bridge to be created across the English Channel to unite France and England.
With regards to the latest idea to create a bridge that connects mainland Britain and Northern Ireland, a source that’s close to Mr Johnson told The Telegraph: “Boris thinks this is an interesting idea which should be looked at more seriously – as politicians in both Scotland and Northern Ireland have already said. It’s the kind of ambitious project we need.”
In terms of Anglo-Irish relations, Johnson’s name has been in the headlines recently after an audio recording was leaked of him saying that the border issue was “pure millennium bug stuff.”
“It’s so small and there are so few firms that actually use that border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way. We’re allowing the whole of our agenda to be dictated by this folly,” he said.
Also, as you can see in the tweet below, it should be noted that The Telegraph’s newspaper edition initially said that the proposed bridge would be 14-miles long.
The direct distance from both Larne and Bangor to Portpatrick is a lot longer than that.
https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1006496731603849216
