It's yes to the Tunnel at £3.30 per ton
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• The Government has issued its White Paper on the Channel Tunnel this week. It has decided, subject to Parliamentary approval, to proceed with further work on the project. Allowing for inflation, the cost is estimated at £846m at the completion date. This amount will be borne equally between the British and French Governments and an international group who would undertake the construction. An additional £120m would be required to be met wholly by British funds to construct a new rail link between London and the tunnel entrance at Cheriton in Kent.
The tunnel would run from Cheriton, near Folkestone, to Frethun, near Calais, a distance of 32 miles of which 23 would be under the sea. There would be two main tunnels each carrying a single railway track and linked by a number of crossovers, and a service tunnel.
Eventually, and when demand justifies it, loose freight and containers on the Freightliner service will be able to move directly by rail from London, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham, to main Continental centres including Paris, Brussels, Lille, Cologne, Munich, Vienna, Basle, Milan, Lyons, Madrid, and Barcelona.
The through rate for containers is expected to be £1.83 per ton.
However, roll-on/roll-off traffic will be accepted only at Cheriton. The estimated cost is £3.30 per ton calculated on the gross vehicle weight. This would amount t approximately £105 for a single journey.
The White Paper estimates the total tim from entering one terminal to leaving the other would be about 1 hour. The journey time is estimated at 35 minutes. Ferry times terminal to terminal between Dover and Calais are nearer four hours.
Copies of the White Paper are available from HMSO, Command No 5430, price 68p.