ABSTRACT
As it was struggling to raise the £206 million second tranche of equity in the autumn of 1986, the Channel Tunnel was also in the midst of its first major environmental row. If there had to be a Channel Tunnel, the green lobby was right behind the idea of an all-rail link, as it would produce far less road traffic than its drive-through rivals. The trouble was, how to dispose of the huge quantities of chalk, mud and other rubble that digging 150 km of tunnels would produce. At Sangatte, the problem was solved quite easily: a suitable land dump was found near to the construction site. But as usual, things were more complicated in Britain. At Shakespeare Cliff there was very little space and such a suitable site simply did not exist nearby.
