Council criticised over plan to repair Avon Bridge and Cumberland Basin road network
Mayor Marvin Rees’s cabinet approved an initial £4.25million on Tuesday (September 5)
Opposition councillors have criticised Bristol City Council leaders for keeping them in the dark about a £50million plan to repair Avon Bridge and the Cumberland Basin road network.
Cllr David Wilcox (Green, Lockleaze), chairman of the growth & regeneration scrutiny commission, told a cabinet meeting that the Labour administration had failed to tell them about the major renovation project or anything beyond “vague” wider future plans for the area it has renamed Western Harbour.
He said that all his cross-party committee, which scrutinises major council projects, had been asked to comment on so far was the “public consultation, poetry and children’s drawings”.
Mayor Marvin Rees’s cabinet approved an initial £4.25million on Tuesday, September 5, for repairs to the crumbling 1960s structures.
Councillors were told the work, expected to last five years starting with inspections and maintenance, was “essential to avoid uncontrolled deterioration”of Avon Bridge whose design is no longer approved because the risk of “potential catastrophic failure” is too high.
Cabinet member for transport Cllr Don Alexander (Labour, Avonmouth & Lawrence Weston) said the aim was to manage the decline of the elevated trunk roads and bridge, which are at the end of their projected lifespan.
He said it gave the council the opportunity to unlock land through the Western Harbour development, which is in the master-planning stage and envisages hundreds of new and affordable homes, better transport links and flood defences.
But Cllr Alexander said it would be up to the new administration after next May’s local elections to determine what should go there and that councillors needed to stop delaying the revamp and get together to make a decision.
Cllr Wilcox said: “I am concerned about the lack of member scrutiny and awareness of this potentially multi-million-pound project.
“The Western Harbour plans have come to growth & regeneration twice in the previous two years, and we have only been asked to comment on the public consultation, poetry and children’s drawings – nothing to do with this level of infrastructure has been presented.”
Cllr Wilcox said all councillors should be briefed on timescales, issues and expected traffic numbers, along with new proposals for the route.
He said funding for the later stages of the road repairs, estimated at a total cost of £40million to £50million, may not be realistic or appropriate because one government-funded pot of money it could come from, the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement, should not be used to encourage more car use.
Cllr Alexander replied: “This bridge is reaching the end of its lifetime and you councillors need to get together and decide what you want to do about Western Harbour while you still have the bridge there.
“You could do with some land in order to liberate capital monies to produce whatever design you want here after this current highways layout.
“It’s unacceptable at the moment, it’s not good for pedestrians or cyclists, so it’s time you stopped some of the discussions that have gone on and actually get on with it because we’re about to find out exactly how long it will last.
“I hope the councillors who delayed the previous Western Harbour plans won’t continue to delay because that obviously has extended the life of this car-heavy development.”
He said the alternative to the renovations would be to close Avon Bridge, on the A3029 Brunel Way which links the west of the city with Ashton Gate and the wider South West.
Cllr Alexander said Cumberland Basin’s roads were nearly 60 years old and carried two-and-a-half times the traffic originally anticipated.
“Like many of our city’s key bridges and infrastructure it has faced years of underinvestment and neglect from previous administrations, resulting in key elements deteriorating at a significant and amplified rate,” he said.
“One of our administration’s key aims is to continue to invest in Bristol’s infrastructure and restore the standards to our key transport links.
“Given the scale of the infrastructure here, our next steps will be to engage in a process of actively managed decline, supporting the end-of-life elements of Cumberland Basin and Avon Bridge.”
A report to cabinet said plans for Western Harbour must be established as soon as possible to determine the scale of repairs to Cumberland Basin, “especially if the development proposals include the dismantling of the current complex”.