THE decision to drop the Channel Tunnel is not only
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a severe blow to British Rail's plans for providing a fast industrial rail link between the Midlands and the North and the populous centres of Europe but is a guarantee that road haulage using sea ferries will remain the principal freight carrier to and from the ('oritinent -at least until such time as another mode (possibly air transport) becomes an economic challenger for the traffic.
This long-term boost for international road transport (which should further benefit from the freeing of ast investment sums earmarked for the Tunnel) has come at virtually the same moment as the announcement by Mr NI ulley that ( 011 ern m ent plans to force the transfer of freight from road to rail are foundering on the rocks of the economic climate -and the practical matter of a lack of suitable rolling stock.
Once again, it seems, it takes a severe economic situation to make clear to politicians (and. hopefully, the public) that alternatives to flexible road transport can only be bought at a er) high price. And in our view are usually a worse solution in any case. It is time that responsible bodies stopped spreading their quaint delusions about transport and the economy. The Civic Trust. for example, apparently unable to face the alternatiy es of more lorries or bigger lorries expressed so clearly by Clifford Sharp, are now preaching a policy of self-denial and local self-sufficiency which may create a cosy image hut has little relevance to the economic and social facts of life. Far better for them to accept that road transport is going to grow (and not because its cost is dropping, as their report misguidedly suggested last week) and to throw their influence behind the campaign for a better road system which will not only benefit the economy but bypass the battered villages the rightly cherish. Nowhere is this now more necessary than in providing better links with the East and South Coast ports, which we trust will escape the axe that Mr Mulley's 40 per cent in road spending represents.