A lane closure on Bridge Road’s bascule bridge in Exeter will remain in place while engineers prepare essential repairs to the structure beneath the bridge deck.
Further investigations by Devon County Council have identified additional cracks in the bridge’s aluminium deck.
Engineers are now developing a repair programme aimed at keeping the bridge open and avoiding more significant disruption in the future.
Simon Hill, the council’s Group Engineer, said the issue cannot be ignored.
“Underneath the bridge at the moment we have got what they call galvanic corrosion, which is when two different metals actually touch each other.
“Unfortunately, this is an inherent part of the design from the 1970s.
“We’ve basically got an aluminium deck that is starting to corrode and break up and is no longer supported underneath.
“If you leave it any longer without any further support or remedial work, then eventually the deck will start to bow and give, and then we would have to close the whole bridge, rather than an isolated lane as we’ve done at the moment.
“We are investigating and will carry out some further testing.
“We have found further cracks in the aluminium decking, which we are concerned about, which is why we didn’t take the lane closure off as planned last week.
“What we’re doing now is identifying some remedial actions that will hopefully allow us to open the bridge in September.
“I think we’re probably looking at a full week of work, but unfortunately nobody will see that happening because it will all be underneath the bridge deck.”
The council says it understands people’s frustration about the lane closure on one of the city’s busiest roads, but trained engineers have advised that the deterioration now being seen within the bridge structure must be addressed to prevent more serious problems developing.
“We want to reassure the public that although they may not see activity as they’re crossing the bridge, work is underway, largely out of site below the bridge deck, and we are committed to getting the bridge fully open again as soon as possible,” added Simon Hill.
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