Can we please stop the Irish Sea link before it wastes our time and money?

Boris Johnson has always been a fan of big transport infrastructure projects but his romantic enthusiasm for an Irish Sea tunnel or bridge is not shared by the population of Northern Ireland, writes Chris Blackhurst

Nowhere is the PM’s attachment to the sweeping gesture more apparent, and dangerous, than where transport infrastructure is concerned (AFP/Getty)

When Hammersmith Bridge was still open, just, to pedestrians only, I was accosted by a man with a clipboard.

Did I have a few minutes to spare? He rattled off a list of questions about how often I used the bridge, why I went across, and so on. Then we got to the fact the Victorian iron structure was badly in need of repair (it closed to all traffic shortly after). What would I like it to become?

A working river crossing of course, one that was fit for the modern age, capable of taking thousands of commuters, schoolchildren, shoppers, patients and staff going to the nearby Charing Cross Hospital, every day, and vehicles, and not something that belonged to a bygone era when there was just the horse and cart. He nodded, but he did not appear to be listening. It was soon clear why as he raised what was obviously the point of his survey. Would I approve if it was made into a “garden bridge”?

How utterly ridiculous, I said. You want to turn a major arterial road, one connecting north and south London, into a pretty park? Despite my snarl he persisted. He wanted to know, on a scale of one to 10, what I thought of the idea.

I told him to keep his survey and stomped off. As I neared the middle of the bridge I happened to glance back. There he was, accosting some other poor sap.

A few days ago, I had cause to be in the East End of London. There, against the skyline, were the wires and towers and empty pods of the cable car link across the Thames. It’s been shut since the advent of Covid, but you have to wonder how long it will survive once lockdown ends and restrictions are lifted.

The Emirates Air Line, to give the service its full title, from Greenwich Peninsula to Royal Victoria Dock near the ExCel, is capable of carrying 250,000 passengers a week. Before the pandemic hit, the line was managing just 24,000 people a week. This, for a facility that when it was first mooted was estimated to come in at £10m to build, but in the end cost £60m.

Then there was the original Garden Bridge Project, which never got under way but, before it was abandoned, absorbed £53m in expenditure, £43m of which came from the public purse.

The person responsible for these follies and others – remember the “Boris Island” airport in the Thames Estuary proposal – was the mayor of London, now prime minister.

As PM, Boris Johnson has a much bigger canvas to play with and a lot more money to spend. He’s someone who loves to make the bold statement and let someone else sort out the detail. Nowhere is his attachment to the sweeping gesture more apparent, and dangerous, than where transport infrastructure is concerned.

Anxious to cement the union, Johnson commissioned Sir Peter Hendy, the chair of Network Rail, to undertake a Union Connectivity Review, to examine road, rail, sea and air travel between Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. One of the results of that is a “discrete feasibility study” into a tunnel or bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

A bridge would regularly be closed to high-sided vehicles, such are the gale-force winds

It’s clear a permanent connection massively appeals to Johnson. It would fit in with his passion for grands projets.

Please, can we stop it, now – before we run up vast sums and waste everyone’s time? I can deliver the study now, for free, if Johnson wishes.

That stretch of the Irish Sea is prone to appalling weather, far worse than Johnson will ever experience in the southeast. A bridge would regularly be closed to high-sided vehicles, such are the gale-force winds. When it’s open, motorists would frequently be having to concentrate on their driving in horizontal rain.

Their journey will take them over the deep North Channel which was used asa dumping ground for explosives after the Second World War. How Boris proposes to deal with all the ordnance down there – old bombs frequently wash up on neighbouring beaches – will be fascinating, and hugely expensive.

Johnson may want it but his romantic enthusiasm is not shared by the population of Northern Ireland. The unionists are in favour, especially post-Brexit and uncertainty surrounding the status of the border with the Irish Republic, and provided they don’t have to pay for it, but a bridge or tunnel has not exactly been a popular cause celebre down the years.

Instead of sitting in London and dreaming, Johnson should get out and travel up and down and across, not as part of some flagged photo opportunity when the red carpet is rolled out for him, but without fanfare and fuss. He should experience what conditions are like for an ordinary person, an ordinary business.

He might then realise that people and businesses have an urgent need to be able to get around more easily. Not between Scotland and Northern Ireland, but between our towns and cities. Ours is a small country, the distances are short, but the hours lost negotiating them are long.

He could even not venture so far afield, and travel to Hammersmith on the District Line from Westminster. He could get off and attempt to traverse the river. Then he would appreciate why the notion of resurrecting his garden bridge fantasy at Hammersmith Bridge sent me into a fury.