Campaigners are urging Devon County Council to aim higher when it replaces two key bridges over the Exeter Ship Canal.
The council has published plans for two new bridges to replace the ageing structures on the A379 Bridge Road near Countess Wear.
The new ‘bascule’ lifting bridges will be resilient and reliable, the county council says. But transport campaigners – and the local MP – say they will be too low to allow anyone to go underneath.
Paddleboarders can barely squeeze underneath, and only then if they lie flat on their boards. The campaigners say building the bridge higher would pave the way for a pedestrian and cycle path to pass beneath the new bridges.
It could even open up the possibility of barges carrying freight along the canal.
Exeter’s Labour MP Steve Race said the county council has ‘missed a trick’ and lacked ambition. Now the project has been criticised for lacking ‘any form of vision’.
The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) and the Friends of Exeter Ship Canal and Heritage Harbour (FESCHH) say they also believe the current public consultation is unrepresentative.
Despite Devon County Council proposing five options for the new bridges at stakeholders’ meetings in October 2025, the groups say the consultation presents only one for the public to comment on, which proposes replacing the bridges at the same height as the current ones.
The canal is part of a five-mile navigable route between the heart of the city and the sea. IWA representative Ray Alexander said: “Devon County Council’s own business case identified the potential for cyclists and pedestrians to pass underneath the new bridges if they were built higher, but this significant safety benefit would be lost if they now press ahead without doing so.
“At a time when towns and cities throughout the country are introducing congestion management measures and seeking low-carbon transport alternatives, it would be short-sighted to rebuild the A379 bridges at a height that discourages future, environmentally friendly freight opportunities on the canal.”
Ellen Stuart of FESCHH said increasing the use of the canal would encourage more visitors to the area.
“The scheme proposes spending up to £50million of public money on replacing the canal bridges and associated works,” she said. “If this investment is to serve Exeter and Devon for the next 60-plus years, it should future-proof Exeter Ship Canal for leisure, freight and passenger use, rather than merely reproducing the existing constraints.
“We should be building for the future, not the past.”
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