OVER OR UNDER?
Page 42
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TAKEN at its face value, Mr. Marples' statement last week that the Government are not hurrying their decision on a Channel link ought to be reassuring to the interests who are in favour of a bridge. The longer the delay, the more chance is there that people will begin to appreciate the true importance of the question, and that the somewhat uncritical public support for a tunnel will correspondingly diminish. Hesitation by the authorities may mean that they are having second thoughts on a subject that at the outset seemed to offer only one satisfactory solution.
Most of the obvious and immediate advantages lie with the tunnel. Plans for its construction have been canvassed at intervals for a century and a half, and for nearly as long it has been a standard theme for school debating societies: There is a powerful tunnel lobby that can automatically rally a section of public opinion, and no doubt increase it once the green light is given. So far as the public are concerned only one tunnel plan is seriously advocated, and the impression is that it could be put into operation almost overnight.
Estimates of the cost of this plan are well below any that have been given for a bridge. There is a promise that capital will be found from private sources, so that the Governments concerned need not worry about raising the money. Another useful consideration—and here we begin to reach the heart of the tunnel-bridge controversy— is that the plan would provide a rail tunnel only. The cross-Channel monopoly thus established might help substantially to keep down the losses on the state-owned railways in both France and Britain.
THE bridge project has none of these short-term advantages that might commend it to the Government. Until not so long ago, it was hardly taken seriously, and there are still critics who believe that the technical and navigational difficulties presented by a bridge across the busy and sometimes stormy Strait of Dover are insoluble. There are less tangible problems Of international law that would not be raised by the construction of a tunnel.
None of the plans put forward for building a bridge has so far attracted a decisive part of the effective support. They cannot be carried out at anything like the cost estimated for the tunnel, and there are no suggestions for finding the money except from the two Governments. It is as certain as may be that the bridge will do nothing to help cure railway insolvency. In fact, the support of the railways for a tunnel is unequivocal, and may be taken by inference as meaning total opposition to a bridge.
The bridge party must therefore be drawn entirely from road transport interests. There are signs that they are beginning to mobilize their forces. For a dangerously long time, many of them hoped to stay neutral. Their opinion was that in principle a Channel link was desirable, but that it did not matter to them whether the link went over or under, so long as their vehicles were able to drive through or across it. Basically, this was a sensible view, but it did not sufficiently take account of the fact that road communications were not in the minds of the railways and of the other backers of a tunnel, who were thus given a free hand to present their own case as the only practical possibility.
cI2 Fortunately, road operators in France were alive to ris, danger, and were at least able to show that the bridg, was not merely an idle dream. Without their intervention it might well have happened that the Government, perhap merely in order to show that they were making progress would have announced their acceptance in principle o the idea of a tunnel. An assurance to this effect was actu ally sought by Mr. Bob Mellish, M.P., in following up th statement by the Minister of Transport. Mr. Marple declined to be specific, and has thus given a breathini space to the bridge party.
IT may not be long, and they must make the best us• of it. They have a good deal to do if they are to presen a serious alternative to the tunnel. They must examinl the various schemes that have been put forward for bridge, and decide, if possible, which one will have thei backing. If time allows, they may find it helpful to se up a study group to consider financial and operationa problems, and to make some estimate of the extent t( which the bridge is likely to be used. • The strength of the case for a bridge lies in its abilip to cope with almost any conceivable increase in the volumi of traffic. The capacity of the tunnel, although no negligible, is admittedly much smaller and much mor■ limited, and even then may have been grossly over estimated. Cars and lorries will go through the tunnel ot flat platform trucks, and there will also be the more norma railway traffic. There cannot fail to be doubts about wha will happen at peak periods, when so many diverse transpor demands find themselves converging on a single railwdl tunnel.
The bridge can claim to provide a link just as good a any other between two great countries. Although one ma3 assume that many shipping services will continue to run, i will inevitably become the main highway between Britair and the whole of Western Europe. The importance of it role can hardly be overestimated if Britain joins tho Common Market.
ROAD operators can plead the long-term national interesi in support of a bridge. They have good reasons neare. home for preferring it, especially as an alternative to thi tunnel. At the moment, they are at the beginning of o completely new development. For the first time, many ol them have been able to send loaded vehicles to thi Continent and to deliver return loads. They could ver3 well make use of more ferry services, and in the norma way these would be forthcoming to meet the need.
However much the services improve, they stand to los( from the building of a Channel link, whether a bridge or o tunnel. If the tunnel is built, although it will be much less convenient than the bridge, operators will be bound to us( it whenever it suits their purpose. The tendency will b( for the alternative shipping services to shrink or disappear with the somewhat sinister consequence that the international operator, who might be expected to play a ke3 part in opening up the Continent for British industry, will be more and more in the hands of his chief competitor. II he cannot have the bridge, it might conceivably be better from his point of view not to have the tunnel either.