HA slammed as bridges close

The shortcomings of the Highway's Agency's œ2.2 billion bridge strengthening programme were highlighted last week when two slip road flyovers at the M1's Junction 2 had to be closed through fear of collapse.

The HA is woefully behind in its 15-year bridge programme. Only œ700 million has been spent since the programme started in 1987. There are now fears that this underspend will lead to lengthy closures of many other bridges.

The flyovers, connecting the M1 to the A1 Great North Way, were closed after an assessment discovered a risk of structural failure. It is estimated that the strengthening work will take until the middle of next year.

The news has angered the British Road Federation. The BRF has identified a further 34 bridges that will need strengthening in the next few years. It is concerned that routine maintenance may also be insufficient for these bridges, leading to shut-downs longer than expected and to chronic traffic congestion.

Mark Glover, campaigns manager at the BRF, said: "If the Government had funded road bridge maintenance to the levels called for by the BRF and the National Audit Office these faults could have been identified earlier, motorists warned of the closure of the flyovers in advance, and repair works planned to cause the minimum of destruction.

"The Government needs to find the money to fund the vital assessment and strengthening of structures on the road network or else the huge cost of this disruption could be repeated on structures across the country."

A spokeswoman for the Highways Agency said: "We have enough money to assess all of the bridges but we don't have enough Government funds to strengthen all of them. We will have to resort to measures such as one-way traffic which will cause some deterioration of the network."

Planned expenditure on road maintenance for 1996/97 will be œ250 million compared with a œ360 million budget for 1994/95.