Cross-channel bridge plans revealed

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Dismissing the option of tunnelling under the water as "impractical", civil engineers submitted a detailed proposal to construct a three-lane motorway between the two countries.

A span of 21 miles between Dover, or perhaps Folkestone, was suggested. Cars and freight traffic could drive 220 feet above the choppy waters of the Channel.

Motorists, it was estimated, would pay a toll charge of £5.60 per person in their vehicle while lorry drivers could be charged £8 to use the route.

Engineers said that private financiers were willing to back the project, attracted no doubt by the forecast that tolls could provide a revenue of up to £220 million a year.

The bridge would have been built along the lines of the Severn Bridge that links South Wales and England at an estimated cost of £3 billion, said engineering group LinktoEurope.

LinktoEurope admitted that the huge pylons on which the bridge would rest could make navigation of the Channel difficult for shipping traffic. But they said that the structure would be sufficiently sturdy that, should a boat plough into the struts, traffic above would be unaffected.

The Government file on the proposals has been kept secret until Monday, when it was released at the National Archives at Kew.

There is no record of how seriously the plans were considered by the Government as they discussed the Channel Tunnel project.

But a formal submission was made to the Transport Secretary in April 1981 and the blueprints and artists' impressions of a Anglo-French bridge link have been carefully preserved.