TRANSPORTATION LINKS WITH EUROPE

SPEECH TO THE ASSOCIATION OF MUNICIPAL ENGINEERS

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Geography has not been kind to the United Kingdom and when one looks at the field of transportation our once proud island fortress now presents us with a problem, namely how do we as a nation link into mainland Europe. Few people within our territory think of the United Kingdom as a peripheral area. After all in the days of Empire, when the Royal Navy ruled the waves, our island was at the centre of the world. But like it or not, developments in Europe since 1945 marginalised the United Kingdom and although refuge was at last found within the European Community, the fact still remains that geography within the new Europe makes us a peripheral nation.