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New Hadrian's Wall would cost £400m

A modern version of Hadrian’s Wall would cost £400m and take 1,500 workers more than two-and-a-half-years to build, according to construction giant Carillion.

Hadrian’s Wall Heritage Ltd asked Carillion to produce a rough estimate of the cost of building a new wall from North Tyneside to Bowness-on-Solway.

The quote produced was based on building a new wall 15 feet high and 10 feet wide from the existing ground level.

A Carillion employee followed in the footsteps of Roman engineers in order to produce the figure.

Linda Tuttiett, chief executive of Hadrian’s Wall Heritage, said: “It can be difficult for some people looking at what remains of Hadrian’s Wall to really appreciate quite what an extraordinary achievement it was. These figures help to show that even 2,000 years later it would be a massive engineering challenge to build a wall from coast to coast.”

Carillon believe building a new wall would take nearly four million tonnes of material and the total cost would be in the order of £300 million to £400 million.

A Carillion spokesperson said: “This is just a very rough estimation but broadly speaking, sourcing and distributing the vast quantities of stone that would be needed would be just one of the challenges in carrying out this project. Obtaining planning permission and getting the necessary finance would be challenging.

“Of course significant modern day environmental and ecological issues associated with a project of this scale would probably prevent it ever happening at all. Finding enough skilled labour to meet the construction programme and the logistics of managing a project on this kind of scale would also be key.

“The current health and safety regulations are of course rather more onerous than in Hadrian’s day. “

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .