Ben Lowry: The UK including Northern Ireland will not think big when it comes to major infrastructure

The first was the latest obstacle to hit the planned high speed rail line in England The second was reports of the continued success of Dublin Airport.

In the former, the government’s infrastructure watchdog – the Infrastructure and Projects Authority – delivered a shocking finding that found that the first phase of the high-speed line from London to Birmingham was “unachievable”. Coming from such an authoritative body, it was a devastating assessment of the so-called HS2 rail project, which was already been hit by repeated delays and soaring costs. The authority believes that the line, which has already been amended to save cost, will have to be further curtailed.

Meanwhile, Dublin Airport reported yesterday that last Sunday it enjoyed its busiest ever day. Dublin Airport has been steadily recovering from the lockdown to recover its place as one of the busiest airports in the UK and Ireland. In 2019 it had a massive 33 million passengers – many of them from Northern Ireland – before plunging to 7 million in 2020, the first year of the Covid lockdown, then 8 million in 2021, before recovering hugely last year to 28 million. This year might be its busiest ever.

The problems with HS2 are so great that it might yet be ditched altogether as an army of critics say it should be. I think that would be a tragedy – that Britain, which in the 1800s pioneered railways and structures such as tunnels and bridges, would not even be able to complete a significant stretch of high speed rail, which some countries had 50 years ago.

Not only have I long been a supporter of HS2, I was enthusiastic about an original plan to link it to HS1, the short stretch of high speed rail from London to the Kent coast at Folkstone, and on into the Channel Tunnel, then out into France where it connects to one of the best high speed train networks on Earth. I first used the tunnel in the summer of 1995, the year after it opened, and recall the applause among fellow passengers when we emerged out of the darkness under the English Channel into daylight and French countryside. For the first time in history, an island that was at the forefront of building civilisation was physically connected to a continent that was also a pioneer in the advance of mankind.

For a while, both in the financial crisis and during the Covid restrictions, there were grim suggestions that the supremely expensive Chunnel might close, never to reopen. That would be like the loss of Concorde – a depressing example of technology and engineering going into reverse. On a much smaller scale, the closure in the post-crash years of the one-hour fast ferry between Larne and Cairnyan, the fastest ever passenger boat crossing between Ireland and Great Britain, was another retreat.

Not only should the high speed rail link to Birmingham (and one day beyond) be built, not only should it have linked directly to the high speed line into France, it would have been an opportunity to fulfil a Boris Johnson vision (he thought big on infrastructure): to close Heathrow, turn it into housing in one of the most desirable home locations in London, the west of the capital, and build a 24-hour airport in the Thames Valley. The biggest in the world, it would have been right on the HS1 rail link and could have been connected to the excellently located Birmingham airport, which would have been expanded to help compensate for the loss of Heathrow.

But we won’t think big in that way in the UK now. Everything seems to be done by committee and compromise and fudge, which means the death of such projects. And we seem unable to control costs for massive infrastructure.

Thought of a possible new airport near the Thames, and the success of Dublin airport, makes me in turn reflect on our airport provision here in Northern Ireland, Over the years I have written about how we have botched that through our all-things-to-all-men and money-grows-on-trees mentality (see link below).

Much as my preferred airport of use to go to England or Scotland is Belfast City, I would accept its closure if City of Derry airport was also to close and a hub built at Aldergrove. When I suggest such a project I am not suggesting that Belfast International, as it is currently run, deserves such an improvement – it doesn’t. But it is located ideally for the sort of airport that could have almost rivalled Dublin, and could become a connection point for airlines flying either to Europe or America. In much the same way that people sometimes fly east from these islands to hubs at Schiphol in Amsterdam or Frankfurt in Germany, then to fly west to the US.

People often call for a good rail link to Aldergrove but it is only really feasible if the other two airports closed and then you would have more than 10 million passengers annually, the sort of critical mass that would justify an expensive train connection. Any such hub airport would also need a dual carriageway or motorway link from the Antrim side and the Lisburn side to rival to Dublin. The latter was cleverly designed at one end of the Irish capital’s M50 orbital motorway and at one end of the motorway to Belfast. This means that a citizen of Belfast has a straight drive to Dublin airport but the reverse does not have such an easy route to Aldergrove, having to use back roads north of Banbridge.

In a recent article on the greatly improved Belfast-Londonderry road (see link below) I mentioned how we could have had it decades earlier if we had accepted road tolls on key routes, as France does and as the Republic has latterly done with its superb motorways. Instead we expect everything, including now talk of a vastly expensive rail line in the lightly populated centre of Northern Ireland – and we expect it all for free.

• Ben Lowry (@Ben Lowry2) is News Letter editor

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