From Cliff Bennett, Yarmouth:

Once again Pro-Link has chosen an opportunist time to seduce us with the possibility of a fixed link.

They tell us that £600 billion is to be made available by the government to fast track infrastructure projects to kick start the economy.

Any government would be failing in its duty if it chose to spend money on a project that would only benefit a few people in a relatively affluent region, where two thirds of the population are over 65, when the final outcome of Covid-19 is going to cost millions of jobs in the traditional industrial heartlands of the country.

I am, as are many other people, aware there are issues with the ferries because I use them every day for my work.

However, the nice thing about this unreliable, expensive mode of travel is that you can only get a limited number of people to and from the Island every day.

A tunnel with unrestricted use would allow access to an unlimited number of people at any time and from anywhere.

It’s not rocket science to work out that in this scenario the spread of infection would be far more likely.

It’s also obvious from the way the fund for the feasibility study into the tunnel is progressing, there is only a limited amount of interest, especially when it comes to money.

£120,000 in today’s money is a relatively small amount, yet progress is painfully slow. It has taken nearly two years to reach £24,000, which is about one sixth of the amount required and, at the present rate of progress, it will take at least another five years, by which time the cost will have probably doubled.

Pro-Link have also chosen to ignore that there is a lot of opposition on the other side of the Solent to this project which, in its present form, will only add to the already massive traffic problems on the approach to Gosport.

When the idea for a fixed link was mooted for the first time in Victorian times, it was no more than a pipe dream. It is still a pipe dream and in ten years time it will still be a pipe dream.

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