Twenty hours on open water might not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but that’s how long it'll take you to get from Scotland to France on a proposed new ferry service.
Danish company DFDS plans to get a service running three times a week from the port of Rosyth near Edinburgh to Dunkirk. It first put forward plans for the ‘Project Brave’ ferry in 2022, but they ran aground due to a lack of funds. Now, the UK government is potentially interested in funding the project, which would strengthen Scotland’s international links in a post-Brexit landscape.
The route would have big economic benefits as well as providing Scottish travellers with a carbon efficient, no-fly way to get to the continent. It’d take around 20 hours, making it one of the longest sea journeys in Europe – though not quite as long as Portsmouth to Bilbao, which lasts between 27 and 30 hours.
Speaking in Westminster last November, Scottish MP Graeme Downie suggested that the service would need about £3 million in funding to get set up. He added that the route would bring ‘an additional £11.5 million of spend to the Scottish economy’ thanks to its initial 51,000 passengers per year, rising to 79,000 according to estimates.
It was initially hoped that the ferry would be operating by spring this year, but DFDS failed to get funding from the Scottish government in time, as Transport Scotland suggested that subsidising routes could be seen as ‘anti-competitive’. A spokesperson from the ferry firm stated: ‘As it stands, the timeframe is currently looking like the second half of 2025.’
DFDS, named the World’s Leading Ferry Service in 2024, used to run a link between Rosyth and Zeebrugge in Belgium, but shut the passenger service after just one year citing a lack of users, and ceased freight crossings in 2018 following a fire.
Will you be booking a ticket to Project Brave’s maiden voyage?
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