New bridge in Bath opens two years after being installed

A new bike and pedestrian bridge has finally opened in Bath two years after it was installed but will not be officially named for months.

The bridge was installed in November 2020 but only opened this week. It links Green Park Road on the north bank of the Avon with the new Bath Quays development and the Lower Bristol Road across the river.

After the stretch between Cleveland Bridge and Pulteney Bridge, this had been the longest city centre stretch of river without a bridge.

The name for the bridge is currently being considered by a special committee and will be announced in the spring. Bath locals were invited to submit their own suggestions for what to call it, in a consultation which closed earlier this month.

The father of Ben Saunders, a Bath 18-year-old who founded a charity before he passed away in 2019 which has helped over 160 other families affected by cancer, has called for the bridge to be named Ben’s Bridge in his memory.

Bath and North East Somerset Council also had their own suggestions: Bayer Bridge, Newark Bridge, Foundry Bridge, Craneworks Bridge, or Quays Bridge — after the Bath Quays development the bridge forms part of.

Bath Quays is the council’s flagship development for the Bath City Enterprise Zone, a redevelopment of the Victorian Newark Works building and the construction of Bath’s first new office space “for a generation” in No. 1 Bath Quays.

It has been claimed by some that businesses who moved into the development did not have to pay rent until the bridge was open. But Andy Smith, a letting agent for No. 1 Bath Quays, said this was not the case. He said: “If you look at any commercial development .. then the tenants, whoever they may be, will get a rent free period.”

He said: “They had only moved in a month or so before the bridge was open.”

Mr Smith added that the rent free period would depend on a number of factors including any uncompleted public realm works and lack of access to the building. He said: “You could say the bridge was a part of the public realm, but it was not rent free because the bridge wasn’t open.”

Leader of the council Kevin Guy said he was proud of what had been done at Bath Quays. He added: “We are looking forward to the New Year with more people moving in and the ongoing development of the site.”

Funding for the bridge was obtained from the West of England Combined Authority and City Cycle Ambition Grants, a government scheme to increase cycling infrastructure.

An international competition was held in 2015 to come up with the design for the bridge, with Parisian architect Marc Miriam’s design chosen over almost 50 others.