Those behind the Solent Freedom Tunnel campaign, Pro-Link, have launched an appeal to raise £130,000 for a ‘viability study’ on a fixed link between the Isle of Wight and the mainland.
New entry and exit points of the proposed tunnel were announced just under two weeks ago, and since the funding appeal was launched five days ago, around £4,000 has been paid into the ‘Pro-link Community bank account’.
What’s in the viability study?
Should the total funds be raised, London-based global engineering company, ARUP, will be conducting the study on behalf of Able Communications (who is this?).
ARUP say the study will seek to address the following questions:
- Are there any obvious technical, engineering, design or planning issues that would make the project impossible to build?
- What is the reasonable cost envelope for the project based on evidence from comparable schemes?
- What are the anticipated high level economic benefits, both transport and wide potential benefits including social benefits?
- What sort of revenues might the project generate based on existing Island trip data today?
- How far might the project revenues go towards paying for the scheme and therefore what scale of funding gap might exist?
- Are there contractors and investors in the market who would be able to finance and deliver the project?
- What possible procurement methods could be used?
Full details can be found on the Solent Tunnel Website.
Funded by the public
Pro-Link say they have exhausted all other avenues of funding such as, the Isle of Wight Council, Red Funnel ferry company, via Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Robert Seely, as well as the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce.
How to donate to the study funds
Pro-link have chosen to not use the traditional third-party Crowdfunding platform, but instead ask donors to pay money directly into the ‘Pro-Link Community account’.
They say that once the complete £130,000 is received (minus the £1,873 already in the account), stage payments to ARUP will first be transferred from the ‘Pro-Link Community account’ to ‘Able Connections Ltd’, which will be the official client of ‘ARUP’.
A daily screen grab of the bank account balance will be posted to the Public Facebook Group – IoW Fixed Link Tunnel Campaign.
Full details of the crowdfunding campaign can be found on the Solent Tunnel Website.
Update
3.10.2018 – A Go Fund Me page has now been set up to collect donations for those who prefer not to pay directly into the Pro-Link Community bank account.
Image: © Solent Freedom Tunnel
