The most financially viable appear to be those from Wales to the Republic, Grose says. It's closer to Manchester and Liverpool and connects straight into Dublin. Rail rather than road would be more realistic both financially and from an engineering point of view, he says. With the Channel Tunnel historically struggling to make money on a much bigger catchment area - the UK and continental Europe - many will doubt whether there is really the business case for the tunnel.
Also the benefits would be much greater in Ireland, which would gain a through-route to continental Europe, than in Britain, which would only gain a route to Ireland. The Irish government would be called on to provide at least half the cost, something that might seem unlikely in these straitened times.
Cycling is booming in London. So much so that at busy times cyclists account for a quarter of all rush hour traffic in central London. London's population is expected to grow by another million people in the next decade. Sam Martin, director at Exterior Architects, says new space needs to be found for cyclists. His SkyCycle idea is for a network of elevated routes that would run over Network Rail train lines.
Bikes would remain on the roads but SkyCycle will bring in a new type of cyclist - people who want a direct route into work and those who feel unsafe cycling on busy London streets. The highways would be 14m wide, accommodating three or four cyclists abreast in each direction. Lifts and ramps would get cyclists up to the cycleway.
The first route to be planned is a 6. It sounds a lot but compared with Crossrail is cheap, he argues. The scheme would be operated by Transport for London with cyclists paying by Oyster swipe card, although charges would be lower than Tube fares. Other routes from north, south and west London would follow, he says.
It's for people commuting to work or for families at weekends who want to visit the markets," he says,. Martin is working with architects Foster and Partners on the project and he says Mayor Boris Johnson is supportive, although no funds have been allocated.
But not everyone is convinced. Sustrans, the transport charity, says although an impressive "statement of intent", the scheme is likely to cost too much if it comes from existing cycling expenditure and it would be better to improve the safety of road junctions, for example by creating roundabouts that give cyclists priority over cars.
To go from Hull to Liverpool takes up to three and a half hours and involves changing in Manchester or Sheffield, yet it is only miles. Soon after lockdown, in mid-Spring, the sight of Snaefell and the Isle of Man became a regular occurrence. The location of the layby is here. From this viewpoint, the Isle of Man is conveniently located right behind Blackpool Tower — which is generally easy to pick out.
In the image above, the red flag in the bottom right represents the viewpoint on Sheep House Lane once more. The blue line links to Snaefell, the highest point on the Isle of Man, and the two red lines are aligned to the top and bottom of the island. As you can see above, the blue sight line from Anglezarke to Snaefell passes very close by Blackpool Tower.
However, this is a flat projection of a spherical earth, so in reality, the curvature of the earth means that Snaefell is not, in fact, directly behind Blackpool Tower. The following images were all taken with a middle-of-the-range digital camera, but with relatively large optical zoom of 65x — the Canon SX60 HS.
I am by no means a camera buff, but I do know that the sensor is smaller than a typical SLR. Distances from Anglezarke Blackpool Tower — 25 miles Snaefell — 89 miles. Even though Blackpool is 25 miles closer to Snaefell, at 64 miles as the crow flies, much less of the island is in fact visible. This is because at Blackpool shoreline you are at sea level, and the curvature of the earth means that only the distant mountain tops are visible.
Blackpool Tower is m tall, to the very tip, so the viewing platform is no more than m above sea level. Our Anglezarke viewpoint is m above sea level.
This raises questions about how animals such as the great Irish elk could have made it to Ireland without a land bridge, but the team believes it can answer this. There are plenty of sandbanks and shoals known today in the Irish Sea's north channel, and a 30 metre fall in sea level would have been more than enough to lift many of them out of the water to become islands.
Movement from island to island "would have made passage by sea much easier", he says. The elk could well have reached these islands and ultimately Ireland by swimming between them according to the University of Maine researchers.
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