Council boss admits "relief" as Cleveland Bridge reopens
Restrictions had been in place since May 2021
The woman who oversaw repairs to Cleveland Bridge in Bath has told us she felt "an element of relief" when the bridge reopened to traffic both ways earlier this week.
Some form of restrictions had been in place on the important route through Bath since May 2021 as repair works had to be carried out.
The work ended up taking much longer than expected after extensive corrosion to the structure of the bridge was found and it caused significant disruption in the city including being cited as one of the reasons for the Bath Half Marathon being postponed twice this year.
Despite that though, Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) Council's cabinet member for transport Manda Rigby, says she would not change how it was handled.
"Yes there was an element of relief (to see the bridge reopen)," she told us.
"But I think we actually, at all times given the information we had in front of us, even in hindsight I wouldn't have made any different decisions because it was impossible to know how bad the bridge actually was until we got the scaffolding up and took the concrete away and our prime motivation in all this is safety first.
"So although I'm incredibly relieved it's open to two way traffic, I'm also quite proud of the fact that we did everything that we had to do first."
Opponents to the council's Liberal Democrat leadership and residents in Bath had expressed frustration at how long the work was taking and some held an impromptu celebration at the bridge when it reopened on Sunday night (October 2).
Councillor Rigby though says she has no regrets.
"Obviously I would've loved to be able to do it quicker," she said.
"But we did say right at the beginning, although we were talking about shorter time lines, we did say until we take the concrete off we actually don't know what it is that we're going to be faced with."
The work that had to be carried out, councillor Rigby explained, was made more complicated by the bridge's Grade II listed status.
"I don't believe that there is anything we could've done that wouldn't have made the fact that this lasted for as long as it did," she said.
The 18-tonne temporary load limit councillor Rigby mentioned has been set "to provide ongoing confidence that the bridge remains safe", BANES Council says.
It will be monitored by number plate recognition ANPR cameras to capture the details of any vehicles that break the limit, but if monitoring shows there are no issues the bridge could technically and safely open to normal traffic loads of 44 tonnes.