Hammersmith Bridge won’t reopen until Motts engineers deem it safe
Hammersmith & Fulham Council leader Stephen Cowan has played down government assertions that Hammersmith Bridge could soon reopen to pedestrians and cyclists.
In a strongly-worded statement, Cowan criticised the Department for Transport s (DfT s) Hammersmith Bridge Taskforce for sharing inspection reports with the press before the council or the council’s bridge maintenance contractor Mott MacDonald.
He added that the bridge will only reopen when Mott MacDonald engineers consider it safe to do so.
In response Cowan said that he will “never take any decision that is against the specialist engineers’ [Mott MacDonald] advice”.
The closure of Hammersmith Bridge is to be reassessed following reports from Aecom and University of Cambridge professor Norman Fleck which suggest that the closure may have been overly cautious.
Both reports conclude that the bridge could be reopened to cyclists and pedestrians with minimal work needed.
However, the reports suggest that the closure of the bridge may have been overly cautious.
Aecom’s report concludes that the crack which caused the bridge to be closed “may not be as serious as previously thought”.
It adds that the crack in question is unlikely to widen further as it “appears to have propagated into the base plate and it is not possible to propagate any further”.