18 Nov 2025

“We can’t afford a £300m bridge.” Really!

Every time the idea of a fixed link across Strangford Lough comes up, somebody in or around the Executive says the same thing:

“We’d love to – but there’s simply no money.”

Not that money is being asked for but simply a proper independent feasibility study into an alternative permanent means of crossing Strangford Lough, and given the depths, a bridge is the most logical method.

On the face of it, £300 million for a bridge and its approach roads sounds huge. But set it beside what Stormont already spends – and what it routinely overruns or wastes – and the “no money” line starts to look very thin.

This post puts a £300m Strangford Lough Crossing package into context and shows how many times over that sum is already being burned inside the system.

1. How big is a £300m scheme really?

The NI Fiscal Council’s assessment of the 2024–25 Budget shows total funding for the Executive (Block Grant plus regional rates) at around £15.25 billion. (NI Fiscal Council)

On that basis:

  • £300m is just under 2% of one year’s spend.
  • It’s one year’s worth of 2p in every £1 the Executive already controls.

And remember: this isn’t day-to-day spending that disappears at year-end. A bridge and upgraded approach roads are 100-year assets that would support:

  • housing growth on the Ards Peninsula and in South Down
  • job access into Belfast and beyond
  • tourism and visitor numbers around the Lough
  • resilience for ambulances, freight and everyday traffic

If we can’t find 2% of one year’s budget for something like that, the problem is not “no money” – it’s what we prioritise and how we manage it.

So where does the money go?

2. Ten ways Stormont spends many “bridge equivalents”

To keep it simple, think of each £300m as “one Strangford Lough Crossing package”.

2.1 Major project overspends – ten bridge packages

The NI Audit Office reported in 2024 that cost overruns across the government’s portfolio of 77 major capital projects had reached about £2.45 billion (estimated out-turn £8.08bn versus original £5.63bn). (Northern Ireland Audit Office)

By mid-2025, the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee said the latest figures show an overspend of more than £3.0 billion across 78 projects. (Northern Ireland Assembly)

  • £3.0bn ÷ £300m ≈ 10

That’s ten full Strangford bridge-plus-roads schemes in extra cost – not the original budgets – simply because big projects were poorly scoped, governed and delivered.

2.2 A5 Western Transport Corridor – up to five bridge packages in overruns

The A5 dualling scheme is the standout example.

  • Early estimates in 2007 put the A5 at about £560m. (agendaNi)
  • By October 2024, briefing for AgendaNI put the cost at £2.1bn – almost four times the original. (agendaNi)
  • A 2025 High Court judgment cites a cost of £1.7bn at 2022 prices. (Judiciary NI)

Even if you use the lower of those modern numbers, the project is hundreds of millions over where it started. Using the 560m → 2.1bn trajectory:

  • Overrun ≈ £1.5bn
  • £1.5bn ÷ £300m = 5

So the A5 alone has swallowed around five Strangford-style bridge packages in extra cost compared to the original ballpark.

2.3 Children’s & maternity hospitals – about one and a half bridge packages

At the Royal Victoria site in Belfast:

  • An Irish News summary of NIAO data reported the children’s hospital rising from £223m to £590m, with completion pushed to 2029. (The Irish News)
  • The new maternity hospital moved from £57m to £97m, and is almost a decade late. (The Irish News)
  • A 2025 Executive announcement now puts the children’s hospital cost at £671m. (The Executive Office)

Taking those figures together, the combined schemes have drifted from roughly £280m to well over £750m, implying hundreds of millions of overrun.

Even if you take a conservative difference of about £450–500m in extra cost over the original combined plans, that’s:

  • £450–500m ≈ 1.5–1.7 × a £300m bridge package

In other words, one and a half Strangford crossings’ worth of money absorbed by delays and cost growth at a single hospital complex.

2.4 Strule Shared Education Campus – costing more than one bridge scheme

The Department of Education confirmed in 2024 that the Strule Shared Education Campus in Omagh will cost around £375m, making it the largest shared education project in NI. (Department of Education)

  • £375m ÷ £300m ≈ 1.25

That’s more than one entire Strangford bridge-and-roads scheme on a school campus – before you even begin to weigh whether it delivers the same regional economic impact as a strategic fixed link.

2.5 Casement Park – two-thirds of a bridge in escalation

Casement Park’s story is now infamous.

  • When the UK-Ireland Euro 2028 bid was first agreed, Casement was being talked about at ~£180m. (Reuters)
  • By September 2024, the UK Government was citing a figure of “potentially over £400m” and refused to fund it to meet the Euro deadline on value-for-money grounds. (Reuters)

The escalation alone – over £200m – is:

  • £200m ÷ £300m ≈ two-thirds of a Strangford bridge package.

And that’s just the increase, not the base cost. NI also lost out on hosting Euro 2028 as a reputational and tourism opportunity along the way.

2.6 RHI – one and a half bridge packages for “cash for ash”

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal is still costing money.

Various analyses put the potential hit to the public purse at up to £490m over 20 years. (Wikipedia)

  • £490m ÷ £300m ≈ 1.6

In other words, the botched “cash for ash” scheme is the equivalent of roughly one and a half Strangford bridge-and-roads schemes – and delivers no lasting infrastructure whatsoever.

2.7 Agency staffing in Health – a bridge package every year

The Department of Health and Westminster committees have highlighted just how dependent Health and Social Care (HSC) has become on agency staff:

That £320m annual bill is:

  • more than the entire cost of a £300m Strangford crossing package every single year.

Nobody disputes that agency staff are essential at times, especially during COVID. But it shows that the system can and does find £300m a year when it wants to patch over workforce planning problems – while claiming it can’t find the same amount once in a generation for transformative infrastructure.

2.8 An outsized public sector – billions in paybill

The Business Register and Employment Survey confirms that:

Commentary in The Times recently estimated that if public-sector employment here were reduced to around Scotland’s level, it could save about £1.5bn a year. (The Times)

  • £1.5bn ÷ £300m = 5

That’s five Strangford bridge schemes every year in potential recurring savings – not by sacking frontline staff, but by chipping away at an unusually large, management-heavy public sector.

Whether you agree with those exact numbers or not, the scale is clear: tiny percentage shifts in how we run the state dwarf the cost of a single £300m project.

2.9 High spend per head on water, housing admin & social protection

Assembly research and UK Parliament briefing papers show NI consistently spending far more per person than the UK average on several categories: (Northern Ireland Assembly)

  • Water supply: about £267 per person in NI vs £129 in Scotland, due to how services are structured and funded here. (Northern Ireland Assembly)
  • Housing & community amenities (not elsewhere classified): around £144 per person in NI vs about £9 UK average – largely reflecting how local authority functions are accounted for. (Research Briefings)
  • Social protection: significantly higher NI spend per head on disability, incapacity, income support, tax credits and related benefits than the UK average. (Northern Ireland Assembly)

With roughly 1.9m people living here, even small movements towards the UK norm in those categories are worth hundreds of millions over a few years – multiple £300m schemes over a decade.

These are complex and politically sensitive areas. The point isn’t “cut benefits and turn them into bridges”, but rather:

Our budget is already tilted heavily towards welfare and system costs rather than productive, growth-enabling infrastructure.

2.10 The cumulative picture – Stormont is already spending “bridge money”, just not on bridges

Put all of the above together:

And that’s before you get into the more subtle, long-term effects of an oversized public sector and our distinctive spending choices on subsidies, water and housing administration.

3. So is it really about affordability?

Once you see the numbers in “bridge-equivalent” terms, the usual soundbite:

“We’d love to, but there’s no £300m for a bridge.”

…becomes very hard to take at face value.

In reality:

  • The Executive already spends about £15bn+ every year. (NI Fiscal Council)
  • £300m is less than 2% of that – once in a generation.
  • The system has already lost, overrun or tied up far more than that on single projects and bad schemes.

The choice facing Stormont isn’t “bridge or no bridge”. It’s:

Do we keep pouring money into overruns, inefficiency and legacy schemes – or do we redirect a small slice of what we already spend into assets that will still be serving people in 2125?

A £300m Strangford Lough Crossing and approach road package is not some wild extravagance. It’s the kind of strategic, revenue-supporting infrastructure that any serious region should be able to deliver once per century.

If we’re being told it’s impossible, that tells us more about our political priorities and governance standards than about the size of the budget. And the SoS seems happy to bat any queries back to the NI Executive.

Sources

  • NI Fiscal Council – NI Executive’s 2024-25 Budget: an assessment (2024) (NI Fiscal Council)
  • NI Audit Office – Major Capital Projects – Follow-up Report and media release (Feb 2024) (Northern Ireland Audit Office)
  • NI Assembly Public Accounts Committee – press release on £3bn overspend (Apr 2025) (Northern Ireland Assembly)
  • A5 Western Transport Corridor cost updates and commentary (agendaNi)
  • Irish News reporting on hospital flagship projects; NI Executive release on £671m children’s hospital (Feb 2025) (The Irish News)
  • Department of Education & contractor announcements on Strule Shared Education Campus costs (2024) (Department of Education)
  • UK Government and media reporting on Casement Park cost escalation and Euro 2028 (Reuters)
  • Reporting and inquiry coverage on RHI “cash for ash” scheme costs (Wikipedia)
  • NI Assembly written statements and Westminster committee evidence on HSC agency staff spend (Northern Ireland Assembly)
  • Business Register and Employment Survey – public-sector share of jobs in NI vs UK (The Northern Ireland Executive)
  • NI Assembly RAISE and UK Parliament briefings on differential spend per head (water, housing, social protection) (Northern Ireland Assembly)

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