Irish Sea Bridge

[7] He proposed a combined road and rail crossing between Portpatrick, in Dumfries and Galloway, and Larne in Northern Ireland, stating that "the coastline between each country is more sheltered and the waterway better protected" than the English Channel, where, as Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson had speculated on a possible bridge.

[8][9] At the Urbanism at Borders Conference in Aberdeen, Professor Dunlop later pitched the idea of the bridge at a keynote speech to an audience of international academics, architects, and engineers at Robert Gordon University.

[14][15] It has also been suggested that such a bridge or tunnel would be able to link up with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and a possible Belfast to Dublin high speed rail being studied for viability as of 2020.

[13] The National, a Scottish newspaper, suggested the idea "would be a huge boost to the economies of both countries, opening up trade and putting the otherwise neglected far South West of Scotland in the centre of a major route".

[22] By early October 2019 it was reported that the Scottish government had plans to re-purpose the nearby disused port at Stranraer as a lorry park in the event of a "No Deal" Brexit, due to concerns about traffic flows from Northern Ireland.

[28] Senior economist Esmond Birnie at the University of Ulster claimed that "Recent economic theory has emphasised the advantages of "agglomeration" arising from faster, cheaper transport: bigger and better labour markets and increased networking between firms" and put the annual benefit from the bridge in the hundreds of millions.

Support The project was first endorsed in late February 2018 by SNP Scottish Brexit Minister Michael Russell MSP, who when addressing Ireland's Seanad joint committee on European Union affairs stated that "I think it's a great idea, it would open up my constituency and that's a good headline to see.

[34] By April 2018, the Mayor of Mid and East Antrim had extended an invitation, on behalf of the council, to the relevant bodies in the government to further explore Larne as the possible end site for the bridge.

[37] A spokesman for the Scottish government suggested that speculation on possible impacts on specific sites was premature as the project, including the design for the crossing, was still in its early stages.

[40] In August 2018, Jane Morrice, former Deputy Speaker to the Northern Irish Assembly, suggested that funding possibilities for the bridge were "vast", with private investors seeking infrastructure projects and investment from China.

She also suggested funding could be raised from "EU sources [which] could include the cross-border INTERREG programme, the European Investment Bank, the TransEuropean Network and HORIZON 2020.

[44] In September 2019, when asked to comment on the project, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Andrea Leadsom said the UK had "amazing ambitions for the future".

[46] In October 2019, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said "Prime Minister Johnson is genuinely interested in taking a serious look at this idea of building a bridge between Antrim and Scotland...I know people dismiss it, but I don't.

[49] In October 2020, specialist vehicle suppliers looked at which potential future engineering innovations would be most welcomed by truck drivers with the Irish Sea Bridge being one of the most supported.

[52] Mallon's counterpart, and former Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson has described the concept as a "vanity project", and stated that it would not proceed within Prime Minister Boris Johnson's lifetime.

NFLA campaigners described the report as "alarming" and called on authorities in Britain and Ireland to review measures designed to protect ferries, oil tankers and fishing trawlers that operate near the Dyke.

[58][59] In 2019, Boris Johnson had requested civil servants in the Treasury and Department for Transport undertake a cost and risk analysis of the proposed bridge, with special attention to be paid to possible funding options.

[60] By February 2020, British government officials had been tasked with scoping out the full cost of building the bridge, though Number 10 would not confirm how many civil servants were working on the project.

A Cabinet Office spokesman responded that the bridge continued to be considered "at a very early stage", but that it remained a consideration as part of many "general options to improve connectivity between the nations of the UK".

The Prime Minister's spokesman later confirmed that the government remained committed to the bridge, stating "We have commissioned some internal work and we are looking at the feasibility of it, there's no change to that.

"[62] At the end of June Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government announced that the funding for the bridge was being considered as part of their post-COVID-19 plan to revitalize the economy by increasing and improving the UK's infrastructure.

Oakervee had expressed concern that since the collapse of Flybe there are fewer opportunities to travel from Great Britain to the island of Ireland and that a rail bridge or tunnel could do something about the issue.

[68] In September 2021, unidentified sources within the British Treasury informed the Financial Times that regardless of the findings of the feasibility study the bridge or tunnel would likely be one of the early casualties of the spending review led by then Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak describing it to be "dead, at least for now" as a project.