Decisions, decisions
With repairs exceeding £250 million, its future - full car restoration or people only access - might hinge on a crucial government decision in the coming months - story 2
When it was just a bridge ..
Another beautiful Autumn day in South West London. 07 October 2018. Over 22,000 cars and 16,000 people would likely pass over The Bridge that Wednesday. Six months later it was closed.
There are several useful timelines explaining what happened next.
Hammersmith & Fulham Council (H&F Council) is the best place to start. While detailed and occasionally meandering, it clearly outlines key events, legal complexities, and major stakeholders.”
Partisan perspectives
Hammersmith Bridge SOS provide an alternative view of the period since. 2019. This group is strongly in favour of restoring the bridge, as its objectives make clear when demanding the authorities
.. repair this vital London transport link and heritage structure to its full functionality as soon as possible.
Its News Updates section covers the period from August 2020 to April 2022. These four pages of news items vividly bring to life the discussions and arguments about the future of The Bridge.
By contrast Possible want The Bridge to be for ‘walkers and wheelers’. Pedestrians, cyclists and other means of assisted personal transport. Possible are a campaigning environmental charity. In March 2022 they released the most cogent alternative vision for The Bridge.
Labour government to fund rebuild?
Fully restoring The Bridge would cost more than £250,000,000 (£250m). Andy Slaugher, Labour MP for Hammersmith says,
“the only unresolved issue with the bridge is who is willing or able to pay how much for the repair”.
As BBC News explains, the scale of investment required means the cost will be split three ways:
Department for Transport (DfT)
Transport for London (TfL)
H&F council, in a typical wrinkle in this story, says it can only afford to pay its share by charging tolls. H&F points out it’s unusual for a council to pick up a third of a such an investment. Normally in London it would covered by TfL and DfT
The key player is DfT. Only it can provide this scale of funding. DfT have already committed some funding including
“emergency exploratory works” following the full closure of the bridge; £2.93m for initial stabilisation works in May 2022; £2.5m for geo-technical works in March 2023; and £2.9m for the temporary resurfacing of the bridge’s carriageway in March 2024.
Like the budgets for all government departments, the DfT’s is subject the new Labour government’s first major spending review. The Barnes Bugle framed the timing and significance just so,
Department for Transport’s capital spend portfolio will form part of the Treasury’s Government Spending Review. Hammersmith Bridge is on the list of projects being considered and the review really is crunch time for the Bridge’s future.
The Bugle makes the point,
If the project gets the thumbs up from the Treasury, work may at last begin on getting the bridge open to traffic again. A thumbs down will mean it will most probably remain a pedestrian/cyclist only thoroughfare.
Meanwhile, a working group, commissioned by the then Transport Secretary of State Grant Shapps in 2020, called The Hammersmith Bridge Task Force has not met for over three years. Here’s how things were left when the Task Force was put into hibernation. Revived, they are to meet on Thursday 30 January 2024, chaired by Labour’s minister for local transport, Simon Lightwood. A DfT spokeswoman, characterised its role this way,
“The Hammersmith Bridge Taskforce will provide a valuable forum for stakeholders to discuss the progress of the repair works and potential next steps, as well as the impact on local traffic.”
£400m .. any takers?
The latest cost estimate was in January 2024. A year ago. Based on most major capital projects in the UK - and beyond - there seems very little chance if the project is approved, the final cost, will be £250m.
My views, which I will explain later, are probably not affected by another, say £50m cost. But I wonder if there is any upper limit which would prove intolerable to those supporting the fully restored Bridge? Is the restoration still worth it at £300m or £400m?