UK government is conducting a feasibility study of a bridge or tunnel to connect Northern Ireland to Scotland in a bid to improve domestic travel between the neighbouring parts of the country. The idea that has been gaining steam since 2018, has the support of UK Prime Minister Borris Johnson who has advocated for it in the past.

The idea got another push by the recent trade link disagreements between the UK and the European Union, dubbed as “Sausage wars”.

Scottish 

architect Alan Dunlop has come up with a proposal for a bridge between Portpatrick in Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland. The bridge has been conceived as a rail-and-road one. 

Though a very short distance, the project is quite ambitious as it poses a lot of challenges, both environmental and geological. And whenever Northern Ireland is involved, it brings to the table political challenges as well.

The real question in front of those conducting the study, the results of which are due in late summer, is that is the project really worth it?

 “There is existing infrastructure, you’ve got cables, you’ve got shipping lanes,” says Quigley. “When you start to map the seabed, it’s surprising how constrained the resources can be,” CNN quoted Paul Quigley, director of Ireland’s Gavin & Doherty Geosolutions as saying.

Also, the closest points between the two landmasses are quite remote so they will be required to be connected to large population centers and that will require additional infrastructure to really get the benefit from such a bridge.

“It’s good to dream and good to imagine these things but there has “to be a project need,” Quigley added.

Quigley is of the opinion that this project also hovers at the outer limits of what is possible from bridge technology.

The current leader in ambitious bridge technology is China, which has built the Hong Kong–Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the world’s longest bridge over water at 48.3 kilometers (30 miles) although the water on which it has been built is shallower than that of the Irish Sea. 

UK transport minister Grant Shapps has said that if such a project is undertaken, it will more likely be a tunnel than a bridge, BBC reported.

The government estimates the project cost at around £20 billion, but the real cost will only be known if and when the project is undertaken.