AS Dundee’s V&A is harnessing the hopes for revitaliding Scotland’s fourth city in the way the Guggenheim Museum witnessed Bilbao’s regeneration in Basque Spain, the proposal to construct a bridge between the north west of Ireland and the south-west of Scotland bubbles with a similar boost factor. Concern about the disruptive effects of such large-scale projects in areas of undeveloped infrastructure, such as rural Galloway in this instance, is surely assuaged by successful outcomes in other instances.
Such a concern presaged the arrival of North Sea oil in Shetland and the outcome was anything but catastrophic. The archipelago was transformed overnight from a backwater to a hub of prosperity and while some might argue that there was cultural damage, there was exposure too of its traditions to the wider world and their strengthening because of this. From being a local winter festival, for example, Lerwick Up Helly Aa is now a tourist draw. Shetland was in other words put on the map.
Similar projects have occurred around the world, whether by natural discovery or by direct human intention, and mostly to the betterment of communities involved. Marketing of Iceland’s geysers, glaciers and volcanic activity has made that remote island a popular stopping-off place for cruise liners and favoured short-term holiday destination.
Infrastructural deficits are there to be overcome. The idea of space stations orbiting the earth was only in Jules Verne and H G Wells story books a hundred years ago.
There is nothing unachievable about a bridge between Ireland and Scotland. I suspect at least a few people in Stranraer will be sympathetic to this proposal.
Ian Johnstone
Peterhead
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