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Analysis by the RAC Foundation has found that 3,203 structures over 1.5 metres in span are not fit to carry the heaviest vehicles now seen on our roads, including lorries of up to 44 tonnes. Data was supplied by 199 of the 207 local highway authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. Many of these bridges have weight restrictions. Others will be under programmes of increased monitoring or even managed decline.
The 3,203 substandard bridges represent 4.4% (about 1 in 23) of the roughly 72,000 bridges to be found on the local road network. The number of substandard bridges is 35% greater than that estimated by the RAC Foundation to have been substandard two years earlier.
The 10 councils in Britain with the highest number of substandard bridges are:
|
Local Authority |
Number of bridges |
Number of substandard bridges |
Proportion of substandard bridges |
|
Devon |
2,689 |
249 |
9% |
|
Somerset |
1,459 |
210 |
14% |
|
Essex |
1,567 |
160 |
10% |
|
Northumberland |
964 |
148 |
15% |
|
Cornwall |
1,008 |
127 |
13% |
|
Suffolk |
923 |
121 |
13% |
|
Lancashire |
1,476 |
93 |
6% |
|
Cumbria |
1,911 |
71 |
4% |
|
Gloucestershire |
961 |
69 |
7% |
|
Cambridgeshire |
878 |
64 |
7% |
The 10 councils in Britain with the highest proportion of substandard bridges are:
|
Local Authority |
Number of bridges |
Number of substandard bridges |
Proportion of substandard bridges |
|
Slough |
36 |
17 |
47% |
|
Bristol |
140 |
52 |
37% |
|
Croydon |
11 |
4 |
36% |
|
Islington |
6 |
2 |
33% |
|
Middlesbrough |
63 |
18 |
29% |
|
Hammersmith and Fulham |
4 |
1 |
25% |
|
Kensington and Chelsea |
4 |
1 |
25% |
|
Blackpool |
21 |
5 |
24% |
|
Conwy |
234 |
51 |
22% |
|
Bracknell Forest |
123 |
21 |
17% |
If money was no object, then councils would ideally want to bring 2,110 of these back up to standard, the RAC Foundation said. However, budget restrictions mean councils only anticipate 416 bridges will have the necessary work carried out on them within the next five years.
The one-off cost of bringing all the substandard bridges back up to perfect condition would be around £890m. This is the equivalent of £278,000 per structure.
The total cost of clearing the backlog of work on all bridges – including those that are substandard – is estimated at £3.9bn.
Councils are currently spending £447m a year on bridge maintenance.
The survey of local highways authorities was carried out with the help of the national bridges group of the Association of Directors of Environment, Economics, Planning & Transportation (ADEPT).
The RAC Foundation also received data from the bodies responsible for looking after Britain’s motorways and trunk roads and found the problem to much less significant here:
|
Authority |
Number of bridges |
Number of substandard bridges |
Proportion of sub-standard bridges |
|
Highways England |
12,184 |
166 |
1% |
|
Transport Scotland |
2,440 |
33 |
1% |
|
Welsh Assembly |
1,263 |
48 |
4% |
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “It’s the pothole backlog that normally hits the headlines but it is easy to forget all the other aspects of road maintenance that councils are involved in; from clearing ditches to cutting verges to maintaining bridges.
“In the face of growing traffic volumes and ageing infrastructure the danger is that without an adequate long-term funding settlement we will see more rather than fewer bridges with weight restrictions, with the backlog bill getting bigger all the time.”
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