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That is our project and a brief glimpse of our cost problem. The facts are, ladies and gentlemen:
we have raised US$ 17 billion to complete the project, with funds in reserve to cover contingencies;
our contractors have completed a tunnel across the Channel, and the other two tunnels in our system are on track for completion by mid-summer 1991;
our programme shows the commissioning process beginning at the start of 1992, with the whole system under commissioning by the beginning of 1993, almost six months before we open.
Above all, we never lose sight of what it is all about - looking to 1993 and beyond.
We are linking the road and rail system of Great Britain into the road and rail systems of the rest of the European Single Market, and indeed to the rest of Europe, piercing the former Iron Curtain. On the continental side, road and rail investment in links to the Tunnel is proceeding well. The French have committed themselves to a TGV or high-speed passenger train network to and beyond Paris and to an enhanced motorway system. Belgian plans are well-advanced, linking the Tunnel by high speed rail (I hope by 1998) and by road, to Cologne in Germany and via Antwerp to Holland. The Germans, the Italians and Spain are investing in high speed rail, in road and rail tunnels. Europe as a whole is working furiously to strengthen and speed up its
rail network to take the strain of further economic and traffic
growth off congested air and road routes. It is ecologically and practically sensible to do so. Britain has been slower, but the signs are hopeful, in new rail plans as well as in enlargement of the motorway network.
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