Channel Tunnel The project was abandoned in May 1882, owing to British political and press campaigns asserting that a tunnel would compromise Britain's national defences. These early works were encountered more than a century later during the TML project. A 1907 film, "Tunnelling the English Channel" by pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès, depicts King Edward VII and President Armand Fallières dreaming of building a tunnel under the English Channel. In 1919, during the Paris Peace Conference, the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, repeatedly brought up the idea of a Channel tunnel as a way of reassuring France about British willingness to defend
George Wallace Tunnel built in sections and floated to the proper positions, then sunk. Each section was sunk next to the previous section and joined underwater. When all sections were connected, and concrete set into place, they were pumped dry and finished out. The depth of clearance is 40 ft (12.2 m) for the ship channel over the tunnel. This is the same clearance as the older Bankhead Tunnel. The tunnel was officially opened to traffic on February 9, 1973, after $50 million ($275.6 million in 2017 dollars) was spent to construct it. It was named after George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama