Public exhibition to be held on improvement plans for Marlow Bridge
Marlow Bridge. (Archive picture)
Improvement plans for Marlow Bridge plans will be on show at a public exhibition in Marlow on Tuesday 18th September 2018.
The public exhibition, organised by Transport for Buckinghamshire, will take place at the Court Garden House, Pound Lane, Marlow and will form part of the Marlow Flood Fair taking place between noon and 8.00pm.
The beautiful 19th century suspension bridge, which crosses the Thames between Marlow and Bisham, has been long misused by overweight vehicles driving or attempting to drive over it.
A 37 tonne HGV attempted to cross the bridge in September 2016 causing concern that permanent damage had been done to this historic structure.
The bridge was closed for two months whilst testing of the integrity of the structure was carried out, only opening again in time for the Christmas period once engineers could be certain that the bridge was safe.
Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation at Buckinghamshire County Council, Paul Irwin, said: ‘We would not want experience another lengthy and disruptive closure as we did in 2016.
In order to safeguard the bridge from further potential damage, a number of options have been considered, including short term and long term solutions.
I do hope that anyone with an interest in the plans will go along to the exhibition to speak to the Transport for Buckinghamshire engineers and discuss the proposals.‘
The exhibition will provide full information on all options available and the work that has taken place over the past 18 months. The forthcoming measures will involve installation of more robust width limiting bollards aimed at preventing HGVs from attempting to cross the bridge.
The work to install the bollards will begin in the October half term holidays and take place overnight to reduce local traffic disruption. The installation will take a maximum of two weeks to complete.
