DUP demand £20bn bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland to ‘bring islands closer’
A HUGE £20billion bridge spanning the Irish sea would bring Britain and Ireland closer together and be a boost to trade, DUP officials have claimed after reviving the idea.
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The party, which received £1billion for Northern Ireland after striking a deal to support Theresa May, wants a 25-mile bridge from Dumfries and Galloway.
A DUP spokeswoman said: “The bridge will act as a catalyst for developing further links between the two islands.”
The project has previously been blasted as “nonsense” and if completed would be one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the history of the UK.
There have been calls for a bridge between Scotland and Ireland from the DUP
The latest proposal for the link has come from senior DUP MP Sammy Wilson and a former Stormont minister Simon Hamilton.
Mr Wilson insisted the bridge will “have a major positive impact on both countries economically”.
He said: “People used to think the Channel Tunnel was pie in the sky. This idea of a fixed crossing has been derided as nonsense for years, but it is entirely feasible from a technical point of view.”
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The current favoured route would see commuters travel between Portpatrick and Larne.
Mr Wilson decided against a significantly shorter bridge to the Mull of Kintyre claiming the roads would be insufficient.
Engineers have rubbished past proposals for a bridge or tunnel due a 30-mile long deep-sea trench between the two countries called Beaufort’s Dyke.
The trench was used as a munitions dump during World War Two.
The fresh proposal hopes to overcome this by having this portion of the bridge float in a similar way to an oil rig.
There is a deep sea trench between the two countries that was used as a magnifications dump
Liverpool University’s school of architecture professor Alan Dunlop hopes the move would create a “Celtic powerhouse”.
He said: “The coastline between each country is more sheltered and the waterway better protected [than the English Channel].
“Crucially, the north channel of the Irish Sea is not nearly as significant a shipping lane.”