North Yorkshire County Council: 'Whitby Swing Bridge IS a priority'
The authority's been responding to claims made by Whitby Town Council
North Yorkshire County Council says Whitby Swing Bridge IS being prioritised.
It has been responding to claims from the Town Council that that is not the case because it has had no reassurances.
An investigation last week found no faults with Whitby Swing Bridge as engineers tried to work out why it keeps breaking down.
Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire County Council's Executive Member for Access, said:
"I'm very happy to reassure that all of our bridges and their maintenance are prioritised. We have actually almost 2,000 highways bridges and we set the highest priority on the maintenance. Many bridges are listed structures and many of them are old.
"North Yorkshire County Council took over the maintenance of Whitby Swing Bridge in 2015 and according to the records, we've been able to reduce the number of issues to about four a year from what used to be some 30 plus issues every year before 2015.
"I mean the bridge is an old structure, it was built in 1909 and it does need specialised maintenance. In fact we maintain the bridge twice a year as opposed to just once a year, which most of our bridges are maintained for.
"It is a complex and mechanical structure. It is close to the sea so there's a high saline content which is corrosive and all of these things make the bridge a challenge to keep in working order 365 days a year.
"We've spent more than half a million pounds on it since 2015 so I refute totally any suggestion that's being made that in some way North Yorkshire County Council or our highways engineers are, in any way, neglecting the maintenance and good repair of this important bridge."