Work progressing quickly on Preston tram bridge

Preston’s Old Tram Bridge was in such poor condition that it took less than half the time to demolish it as had been expected, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) can reveal.

Although work to remove remnants of rubble on the banks of the Ribble continues, the structure itself was gone in the space of two weeks – with the work completed before the end of August.

Engineers involved in the project have told the LDRS that the demolition had been forecast to run well into September – and possibly as far as the final week of the month if “things had gone badly”.

However, the crumbling state of the structure, coupled with favourable weather conditions, has set the replacement bridge scheme off to a flying start.

“The in-river piers themselves were strong, but the actual bridge decks were very weak and came down – as everyone saw who was watching the demolition – very easily,” explained Antony Mulligan, contracts manager for Eric Wright Civil Engineering, the South Ribble-based firm leading the work.

Chris Wilding, Lancashire County Council’s bridges and structures design manager, says the way in which the crossing point collapsed more than vindicated the decision to shut it on safety grounds back in February 2019.

“When it was closed, it was because of this potential risk. We would have preferred not to have [done that]… but the condition of the bridge and, in particular, [the] beams was a real problem.

“It was recognised at the time and the inspection reports were peer-reviewed and came to the same conclusion,” Chris said.

He is now cautiously confident that the new bridge – traversing the same span of river between Avenham Park and Penwortham – will be a Christmas present that the people of Preston and South Ribble can enjoy in December 2025.

Before then, however, there is the small matter of completing an almighty engineering project.

Next on that front is the installation of the first of two in-river piers, which will be put in place before contractors have to vacate the river channel ahead of winter, for both practical and environmental reasons.

Work in the water will be brought to a stop first by the weather – and then by rules to protect the salmon found in Ribble – until next June.

Antony says he is hoping for “an Indian summer” this year, which would allow workers to remain in the river until early November.

The site will not completely shut down once the weather does finally turn – with work likely to continue to install a land pier on the southern bank of the Ribble.

When the project restarts in earnest, the first job will be to complete the second pier in the river itself.

Further work will also be carried out on the huge compound that has been built on the South Ribble side in order to enable it to accommodate the crane needed to put the new bridge in place – which, as the LDRS has previously revealed, will occupy an area around the size of two football pitches.

All of that is in preparation for the part of the project Chris says is “generally the thing that people like to see” – the moment “it start[s] to look like a bridge”.

Antony added:  “It’s going to come to the site in a number of sections, then it will be lifted into position by a very large crane, which will attract a lot of attention – [and] then it will be connected together over the watercourse.

“That’s scheduled for autumn [and] winter next year and we expect it to take a few weeks to pull that all together.”

Although the hope is that the first walkers, cyclists and even horseriders – for it will also be a bridle path – will be able to cross the new bridge before the end of 2025, one element of the project will continue into the following year:  the work to make it look like the previous 18 months had never happened.

“Part of that is going to be reinstating the land [and] making sure all the equipment is…taken away from [the] site [so] that we’re left with the view that we’ve got [now] – just with the new bridge in place,” Chris said.

BRIDGE TO THE PAST

The abutments – or supports – standing at either end of the bridge are believed to date back to its original 1804 construction and will remain as a link to the two-century history of the site.

“We’re going to refurbish them and re-use them,” Chris Wilding explained.

“They’re a great historical feature that we wouldn’t want to disappear or affect.”

Meanwhile, the concrete bases of the previous bridge’s piers have been left on the river bed, so as to cause as little disturbance as possible to that sensitive area.  However, they will stay only as a sunken relic and are not going to be used to anchor the new structure.

SIGHTS YOU SELDOM SEE

A senior Preston city councillor says she has been struck by the sight of the Ribble without its Old Tram Bridge crossing – a vista seen on only a handful of occasions in the 220 years since the first of its incarnations was erected.

Valerie Wise, cabinet member for community wealth building, said that while she has been appreciating the “historic moment”, she believes the new bridge will “add to the features of this amazing river”.

“As somebody who used to live near here – my kids and I used to roller skate across the old bridge – I think it’s a great place for cyclists, children and walkers…so it’s going to be great when it reopens,” Cllr Wise said.

She is also hoping that it will encourage more people travelling between South Ribble and Preston, whether for work or pleasure, to leave their cars at home – and not just for the sake of the environment.

“From a health perspective, cycling [and] walking is really good for you.  So I think it’s going to be something that is really important to the people of Preston and South Ribble,” she added.

BRIDGE BUDGET BOOST

Since work on the Old Tram Bridge project began back in May, an extra £1.6m has been added to its original £6.6m budget.

The additional cash has come from the pot originally earmarked for the now scrapped plans to create new football facilities on Preston’s Ashton Park.

As the LDRS revealed last month, the boost to the bridge budget may or may not be needed in full – depending on the extent to which progress can be made before the enforced pause over winter and spring.

Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown told the LDRS that the £8.2m now provisionally allocated to the scheme would also provide a contingency in the event of any further rises in construction costs.

He said it was “sensible” to redistribute the funding to a project with “lots of community support”.

The movement of the money from the Ashton Park scheme to others within the £20m package Preston secured from the last government’s Levelling Up Fund – a moniker dropped by the new Labour administration – is subject to ministerial approval.

Cllr Brown also championed the use of Eric Wright Civil Engineering – as a company “within the Preston economic area” – and the Preston-based architect John Bridge as a way of supporting local jobs via the project.

He also revealed that the new bridge itself will be sourced for Whalley, in Ribble Valley.

Meanwhile, Lancashire County Council cabinet member for economic development and growth Aidy Riggott, said he believed the £1m which his authority had contributed to the bridge replacement was looking like “a great investment”.

“It will be hard to measure [the value for money] in a traditional way.  But I think the visitors to the park – the cyclists, the dog walkers who cross through this spot – will be using it for 100 years or [more], so it will absolutely pay for itself over that time,” County Cllr Riggott said.