Boris should stop burning bridges instead of making bonkers bids to build them
NOTHING better sums up this Government’s scattergun and scatterbrained approach to improving the infrastructure of Britain than Boris Johnson’s latest delusional idea: building a bridge to France. Until three weeks ago I chaired the National Infrastructure Commission, the body that is supposed to advise Theresa May and her Ministers on what to build and where to build it. I resigned for one simple reason: if you are going to ask someone for their expert advice, you ought to listen to it – something this Government found impossible to do.
Mesmerised by Brexit and preoccupied with bailing out billionaires like Sir Richard Branson and Sir Brian Souter, who have reneged on promises to pay the taxpayer a fair sum for the right to run parts of the rail network, Mrs May’s Cabinet has little time or instinct for making long-term strategic infrastructure decisions. Fresh from the equally ill-thought-out ‘Boris Island’ airport and the Garden Bridge across the Thames in London, Boris this week announced his latest wheeze – a gigantic bridge across the English Channel. Like his previous forays into infrastructure, this proposal is not just unwise but crazy, even by Boris’s barmy standards, and based on no apparent discussion with engineering, planning, financial or any other experts whatsoever.
We already have a tunnel to France, one that transports not only trains but also, through its vehicle shuttles, cars and freight lorries at high speed to the Continent. Clearly, no one has told Boris – and he hasn’t bothered to find out – that the Channel Tunnel does not run at full capacity and has plenty of space left for extra trains, cars, passengers and freight.
Building a totally unnecessary bridge to compete with it would be a reckless waste of public funds and would undermine the delicate economics on which the tunnel functions. Besides which, after Boris’s Brexit – which as a proud and defiant Remainer, I would argue is an exercise in burning bridges rather than building them – we may well be facing not an increase, but a drop in cross-Channel trade. We certainly cannot expect the sort of boom that would justify possibly more than £100 billion of new investment.
BORIS is right that Britain desperately needs new infrastructure if it is to face the future with confidence. Even without Brexit, we are woefully under-served by our creaking railways and our ageing power stations. Instead of another ludicrous vanity project with only one real design – to create more headlines for Boris – here are five well-thought-out and viable infrastructure projects ready and waiting to go, if only Boris and the rest of the Government were serious about getting Britain moving.
ONE, a ‘ Crossrail of the North’ – a new high-speed line connecting our great Northern cities. Getting from Hull to Liverpool – via Manchester and Leeds – should and could be the equivalent of getting f rom one side of London to the other. As with much else, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has been all talk and no action.
TWO, a new Midlands Hub – making the most of the new HS2 railway from London to Birmingham in order to unlock Britain from the centre. A bigger Birmingham airport in the Midlands, coupled with high-speed links to Scotland and stronger connections between towns and cities in the Midlands, will help that region prosper and alleviate Britain’s relentless focus and dependence on London.
THREE, the Swansea tidal-lagoon – a vital green energy project to replace carbon- intensive power stations, while unleashing the economic potential of South Wales.
FOUR, initiating Crossrail 2, the proposed new north-south rail line through London to relieve congestion at key rail termini, to move people more quickly around the capital by public transport, and to build 200,000 new homes near the new and bigger stations. This is vital to prevent London falling behind global competitors such as Shanghai and Singapore.
And FIVE, building a Lower Thames Crossing, relieving the highly congested Dartford Crossing, boosting existing motorway links to the Channel ports and reducing the congestion that clogs Dover and humiliates Britain before our visitors even get their first glimpse of the country.
These projects may lack the glamour and excitement of a bridge from Dover to Calais, or perhaps Boris was thinking of one from Trafalgar Square to the Champs-Elysees. Or another of his zip wires – who knows? But they have one crucial advantage: they are practical, prudent, cost-effective and will help millions of Britons go about their work and leisure more easily. Boris’s fantasy projects will help no one because they will never be built.
Heaven knows what President Macron thought when Boris blurted out his Channel Bridge idea. It will have done little to encourage the French or anyone el se to t ake Boris seriously.
If he really wants to give Britain the infrastructure we need to survive Brexit, then he should urge Mrs May and Mr Grayling to get cracking on the five projects I have set out.
The reality is that there is even less chance of Boris delivering a Channel Bridge than there is of him delivering the £350 million extra for the NHS he promised in the EU referendum campaign.
If he continues to bang the drum for his latest white elephant, it will merely show he has learned nothing from that campaign or the consequences of putting vanity over veracity. I am not concerned about the damage Boris does to his reputation. I do worry about the damage he is doing to the future of Britain.
We are woefully under-served by our creaking infrastructure