AFTER last month’s collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, London-based, world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, himself a native of Genoa, remarked: “A bridge is a symbol and should never fall, because when a bridge falls, walls go up. So it’s not only physical but metaphorical – walls are bad, we should not build walls, but bridges are good, they make connections.”

The resilient Italians will quickly rebuild, and reunite Genoa’s two fractured halves, but Signor Renzo’s praise of the importance and liberating nature of a mere bridge could equally apply to the proposed Scottish-Irish bridge which would enter Scotland at either Mull of Kintyre or Mull of Galloway (Case made for Irish Sea bridge, September 5). I think that the longer link to Galloway starts as the favourite.

If indeed the Galloway link proceeds there will be much pressure to improve the road links to the motorway network at the English Border, but I would be exerting pressure for improvements in the opposite direction, north!

The deep sea port of Hunterston is a mere 79 miles away from the North of Galloway’s Stranraer, and Greenock is 106 miles away. Leith and Rosyth are another 20 or 30 miles further distant and would provide European shipping links. It would be such a bitter blow if the business surge from the completion of the bridge headed south of the Border rather than here.

Hunterston Quay, no longer needed for unloading iron ore or coal, is about to be demolished. Perhaps this should be stopped and reconsideration given to its development as a container port. Improvements to Greenock could be both important in commercial terms and for tourism, as the number of cruise ships visiting will go up as our infrastructure develops along a previously declining Scottish coastline.

So North Ayrshire gems such as Largs and Wemyss Bay would have to be bypassed, and South Ayrshire towns such as Girvan. The latter two are easy enough but the greenest bypass of Largs would be with a three- or four-mile tunnel. Costly, but the Italians would have done it years ago. Why not us?

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If our engineering firms do well here, further projects, such as a tunnel to Orkney, could spread economic growth throughout the whole country. Thoughtful and visionary smaller projects are needed to ensure the headline-grabbing big ones really benefit our little nation.

Genoa is one of the Mediterranean’s busiest (and most beautiful) ports and will have to work very quickly to retain its importance after the bridge collapse. Scotland should work quickly too, to ensure that the engineering and project management excellence typified by the efficiently managed Queensferry Crossing just goes on and on.

On a smaller scale, Hunterston could be Scotland’s Port of Genoa and Greenock the equivalent of that favourite cruise ship destination in Liguria, La Spezia, sparkling in a truly gorgeous setting in the beautiful Bay of Poets.

We could even have poetic types like Byron or Shelley trying their luck with a bracing Greenock-to-Dunoon dip or windsurf. But they’d need to move quickly to avoid the increased maritime traffic brought about by that bridge to Ireland, wherever it ends up being built and whoever ultimately designs it – either a world-famous architect like Renzo Piano or, perhaps more appropriately, our own prestigious architect, Professor Alan Dunlop, who is as keen to build a new big bridge in and from his native land as Signor Piano is to rebuild one in his fine Italian home city.

David Crines
Hamilton