Letter: Where’s money for tunnel?

WHEN money seems to be available for projects such as the proposed Stonehenge bypass (£1.7bn?) or the HS2 Bat tunnel (£200m), the Isle of Wight is at the back of the queue, if there is even a queue!

In 1991, an underwater two-lane dual carriageway tunnel was ‘built’ on the ASS at Colwyn Bay which by-passed Conwy. It was probably at the forefront of technology at the time, and used what is called ‘immersed tube construction’. Several of these tunnels have now been built around the world, one in Hong Kong of 6.7km in 2018 and the world’s longest. the Fehmarnbelt of 18Km and at a depth of 40m below the Baltic, linking Danish and German islands.

At Conwy, six enormous sections of reinforced concrete, each weighing 80,000 tons were built locally in a prepared earth basin. When completed, water was let in and they were floated out.

These sections were then sunk onto very precisely prepared areas of the river bed and connected together. They even included a slight curve to follow the river bend.

Could not a similar construction be used for a road tunnel in the Solent to the island?

Construction time could be considerably reduced if the various sections were made around the UK, similar to the wartime manufacture of the Mulbery Harbours and towed to the site. This would also spread the economic benefit of the tunnel cost to other UK areas, not unlike when ships are built in sections in several shipyards.

The only contentious issue would be where to locate it. Problem solved – build two!

NA Fancett

New Milton