Colwall Bridge

See Progress Report 9 from Martin Jackson, Herefordshire Council, including his response to the Parish alternative bridge design and add your comments below.

Last week my 15-yr-old son was almost hit by a vehicle that mounted the pavement as it swung out of the chicane.

He says the car was travelling quite fast, and luckily he was paying attention (the sound of the speeding car alerted him) and was able to leap out of the way, but according to him, it was a close thing.

OK - so no harm done - on this occasion - but what if it had been a smaller child, not paying attention, or a parent with a buggy and toddler - they could hardly have leapt aside as nimbly as a teenage boy.

From the Malvern Gazette, 20 June page 9

Fresh calls for an expansion of the temporary narrow chicane on Colwall bridge have been made after a man damaged his car. He says he was driving at around 2 mph when he scraped his Ford Focus on the rails of the bridge, causing damage to the bodywork just after midnight on Saturday, June 14.

The alternative design put forward by the Parish to Herefordshire Council is for a free-flowing 2-lane carriageway with wide footpath. This layout won’t cost any more and won’t take longer to build than the bridge with single lane, traffic lights and massive footpath/’cycleway’ proposed in Progress report 7.

It emerged at a site meeting on 13 June that the ‘cycleway’ would not be signed as such and therefore it cannot be a cycleway.

Read the Parish alternative layout submitted to Herefordshire Council and add your comments below.

Why does the Council want to build a single-lane bridge? Well, they tell us that to provide two lanes would need the bridge to be widened, which would take too long and we want one quickly. (They seem keen to cooperate, all of a sudden!). It is claimed that two lanes cannot be achieved within the existing width – but they can. There is no legal or safety reason why we have to have two footways. One widened footpath on the school side and two traffic lanes is technically possible within the existing width.

So why is the Council suddenly so keen on a single traffic lane? Well, they haven’t told us, have they? My guess is that the real reason is money!

A single lane bridge would need to support one 40 tonne lorry, while two lanes would need to be able to support two 40 tonne lorries simultaneously (unlikely, but possible). This would require a stronger and more expensive construction. At present, I believe, the Council and Network Rail are each paying 50% of the cost of the single lane bridge. If the bridge had to be strengthened to take this extra weight, the Council would have to pay 100% of that extra cost. We don’t know how much this would be, because we haven’t been told. (Did I hear you ask ‘why not’?) A wider bridge would give us better standards, but would cost considerably more – all that extra expense being met by the Council.

It is not hard to see why the Council wants to build a bridge of the same width as the present one and is using every argument it can to try and justify providing just a single traffic lane. That reason is cost. However, it is hard to see justification for having made the decision months ago without telling us, or consulting local representatives. Is that concealment; dishonesty?

Perhaps it is too expensive to justify, but we have a right to know the facts and put our arguments. It is our money at stake, money from residents and businesses. The Council is meant to act on our behalf and spend it on the community. If they ignore our views, we can’t do anything about it (at least not until the next local elections – that’s democracy at work), but we can let them know what we think of them.

So, honest and open? You decide, then tell them!

Some email addresses you might like:

Cllr Brian Wilcox, Cabinet Member: bwilcox@herefordshire.gov.uk
Cllr Roger Phillips, Leader of the Council: rjphillips@herefordshire.gov.uk
Cllr Roy Stockton, local councillor: rvstockton@herefordshire.gov.uk
Cllr Rees Mills, local councillor: rmills@herefordshire.gov.uk

At the public meeting arranged by the Parish Council on 27 February, we were told we would have a new bridge in a year, instead of having to wait until 2011. This seemed to be good news.

Six weeks later, on 11 April, we find out this new bridge is to have a single vehicle lane. We also find out that this major change from the current bridge is essential in order to achieve the shortened programme. It follows that, if the commitment to a year’s programme was given at the public meeting, this condition too must have been known. I was at the meeting and didn’t hear about this, nor did anyone else – because it was withheld from us. It appears that the Council decided not to tell us.

Does that fall within your definition of openness and honesty?

I asked Cllr Wilcox, Cabinet member responsible for highways, to explain this, but received an evasive reply. I have tried a second time. Perhaps more of us should ask him? His email address is:

bwilcox@herefordshire.gov.uk

Does this latest twist in the sad saga of Colwall bridge strike you as good management, or are we being taken for a ride – or for village idiots?

Councils do have to make difficult decisions, some of which we might not agree with. However, it is an essential part of the democratic process that the Councils are open and honest about the problems they must decide and the reasons for their decisions. A council cannot choose to conceal the parts they find difficult to justify. That way lies dishonesty.

Do you live in Colwall or the neighbourhood? What do you think of the proposed new single lane bridge with combined cycleway and footway?

See Progress Report 7 from Herefordshire Council , read the comments so far, and add your own views.

Does this look like 30 degrees to you?

Yes, it does, trouble is it should be 18 degrees.

This is the angle at the corner on the chicane which has caused all the damage. The plan supplied to the Council by their consulting engineers shows this corner to be 18 degrees, but, as you can see, it is 30 degrees – it is too sharp. We showed this to Mr Jackson, the Council’s engineer in charge of the works on the bridge, and he said ‘it looks like 30 degrees, but it is 18 degrees’. It seems he has convinced the councillors that it is 18 degrees too, as they propose to take no action.

This is no trick photograph and that angle on the paper set square is really 30 degrees. As far as I am aware, only sub-atomic particles can have more than one property at the same time. So this is either a sub-atomic particle, or the Council doesn’t want to admit that the chicane has been wrongly constructed. But aren’t sub-atomic particles very, very, very small? What do you think? Why not tell us? Why not tell the Council?

Right from the outset, the Herefordshire Council has made it clear that the bridge is owned by Network Rail. Fair enough, it is. But did you get the impression that the Council is only responsible for the roadway on top of the bridge? If you did, that would be understandable, but it is not true.

The bridge is crossed by a highway and it is the responsibility of the local Highway Authority, in this case Herefordshire Council, to maintain that highway. The Highways Act of 1980 imposes that duty on the Council. But section 328(2) of the same Act also states that “Where a highway passes over a bridge or through a tunnel that bridge or tunnel is to be taken for the purposes of this act to be part of the highway.” Case law has made it clear that if the highway authority has a duty or right to repair a highway it includes any bridge it crosses, regardless of ownership.

Now, nobody in Colwall objects to Network Rail sharing the costs and Network rail probably have some legal obligations too, but let us be clear where the ultimate responsibility lies.