Her's an extract taken from
www.sevenstreets.com.It’s taken 76 years, but the Queensway Tunnel has finally received its red carpet premiere. Starring (OK, we use the term loosely) in the latest Harry Potter film, The Deathly Hallows, the world’s first underwater road tunnel looks suitably Gothic and grim – seems that, to a location-hungry film scout, all those exhaust fumes and sooty deposits are a real find.
But take a good hard look at the tunnel’s feature-film close up – for it’s about to get a long-overdue (£12 million) scrub down.
First to go? Those edge of carriageway railings. The reason? Tired and emotional Wirral residents thinking a stroll under the water has got to be better than waiting for the tunnel bus.
“The railings make the tunnel look like an easy route home when you’re drunk,” SevenStreet’s tunnel guide, Alison Smith says, “but we see the casualties, and trust us, it’s not.”
“We started taking the railings down to prepare for the re-cladding operation, but we’re probably going to leave them off. The tunnels look less inviting without them.”
She’s not wrong. Still, the tunnel must have looked a lot more inviting when it was first opened. Back then, it was a gleaming procession.