The Prime Minister’s ‘Brexit bridge’ would not be easy to construct (Picture: PA)

Boris Johnson has said a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland would be ‘very good’ and would ‘only cost about £15 billion’.

The Prime Minister discussed the ambitious plan with schoolchildren playing with a model container ship on board a lighthouse tender on the Thames in London.

Johnson told pupils aboard the NLV Pharos that he was talking yesterday about building the bridge from Stranraer in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland.

He told them: ‘That would be very good. It would only cost about £15 billion.’


It follows reports that the PM has asked government officials for advice on the costs and risks of such a project.



Building the 28 mile long ‘Brexit bridge’, which has been estimated to cost between £15 billion and £20 billion, would be no easy feat.

He talked to schoolchildren about the £15 billion plan when he visited the NLV Pharos in London (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

Renowned engineer James Duncan said the chances of pulling the project off without a problem would be ‘about as fanciful as building a bridge to the Moon’.

It would run adjacent to Beaufort’s Dyke, a 30 mile long, 900ft deep trench which the Ministry of Defence dumped munitions in between end of World War 1 and the Seventies.

As well as 1.5 million tons of explosives, they also dumped mustard gas and nerve agent Sarin and radioactive waste from the UK’s nuclear weapons programme, MailOnline reports.

There is no complete map of the weapons dump so it would be difficult to find a way to completely steer clear.

Winds in the North Channel – the part of the Irish sea between Scotland and Northern Ireland – can whip up choppy and perilous seas.

A number of 1,400ft tall support towers would also need to be built, transported on site and carefully dropped and fixed into the sea bed.

The bridge would be 28 miles long and could cost as much as £20 billion according to some estimates

Johnson also proposed a bridge between Britain and France last year

The DUP, who prop Johnson’s minority government, support proposals for a bridge which they hope could bring economic benefits to both countries.

A bridge has also been touted as a potential solution to the Irish backstop arrangement, on which Johnson an the European Union remain at loggerheads over.

Johnson first introduce the idea while serving as foreign secretary, telling the Sunday Times last year: ‘What we need to do is build a bridge between our islands. Why don’t we? Why don’t we?

‘There is so much more we can do, and what grieves me about the current approach to Brexit is that we are just in danger of not believing in ourselves, not believing in Britain.’

Last year Johnson raised the prospect of a bridge between the UK and France following top-level talks between the two countries.

He said ‘good connections’ were important and suggested the Channel Tunnel could be considered as a ‘first step’.

Got a story for Metro.co.uk? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page.