Weymouth Town Bridge maintenance

Why is the work needed?

Dorset County Council owns, maintains and operates Weymouth Town Bridge, the distinctive lifting bridge at the entrance to Weymouth Harbour.

The Grade II-listed bascule bridge was built in 1930. The county council inspects all of its bridges at least every two years. Our inspection programme has highlighted serious deterioration of the bridge in recent years and has carried out various remedial works. However, the bridge is now urgently in need of a complete refurbishment.

Supporting steel beams members are badly corroded and the welds holding down the steel deck plates have failed, causing the plates to come loose. The surfacing has broken up, leaving unsafe slippery patches.

Without these major works, the bridge will continue to need to be shut at short notice for more emergency repairs, and may become unsafe for traffic.

What work will be done?

We will be:

• Taking up the steel deck and replacing the corroded supporting beams beneath

• Replacing the deck with a thicker, stiffer steel plate deck

• Resurfacing the new deck

• Repainting the bridge and parapets

• Repairing the handrails

• Repairing and repainting the lanterns

Who is doing the work?

Dorset Highways, the county council's roads and transport service, will be carrying out the work and will engage specialist contractors to carry out the structural steelwork repairs and repainting.

When is it happening?

The work started on 5 March and will continue until 19 May 2012.

Due to the nature of the works and the need to create a safe working environment for workers and the public, the bridge will need to be closed to road traffic throughout the works.

The bridge will remain open to pedestrians throughout (except when lifted, of course). Most of the time, only one footway will be open, but both will be open over the Easter break.

Following discussions with Weymouth Harbour Master and the Harbour Consultative Group, the bridge lift schedule has been amended.  The bridge is lifted at 8am and again at 6pm daily for boats to pass through. In addition the bridge can be opened at 12 noon, subject to 24 hours notice being given to the Harbour Master. After Easter, an additional daily lift will also take place at 8pm.

For the period of 6 - 15 April 2012 the usual schedule of lifts for the bridge will apply, please see Weymouth Harbour website (opens in a new window)   for the schedule.  From 15 April the amended schedule of bridge lifts will resume until works are complete.

Why is it being done at this time of year?

The work is highly weather-dependant - it's too risky to do it any earlier in the year and has been timed to avoid the busy Christmas and summer periods.

Can you do the work at night?

Night working has been considered as an option to speed up the works but has been rejected due to the noise and disturbance it would cause to local residents.

Why can the bridge not be opened over Easter?

The bridge will be open to pedestrians but closed to traffic throughout the works, including over the Easter break.  It had been originally hoped to open the bridge to traffic during this period however this has changed for the following reasons:-

• The traffic diversion has been working well, and the bus companies were happy to keep their diverted routes running over Easter.  It was felt that more disruption would occur by reverting to normal and then reimplementing the diversion after Easter.

• Enabling works for the second phase of refurbishment can be carried out more safely and quickly if there is no traffic on the bridge.

• To order to open the bridge to traffic it would be necessary to dismantle the site compound and remove all the site cabins and storage containers, these would then need to be returned to site after Easter.  In addition the newly re-plated lifting leaf of the bridge deck would need to be resurfaced before it would be safe for traffic. By not opening the bridge to traffic during the Easter period there is cost and potential time saving to the project.

• Name: Dorset Highways
  Email: dorsetdirect@dorsetcc.gov.uk
  Tel: 01305 221020
  Full details for Dorset Highways