Skip to content

MP renews plea for emergency repair funds

Liberal Democrats Tim Farron standing by the bridge on Brigsteer Road. He has short fair hair and is wearing a light blue shirt and grey jacket. Below him, two vehicles are being driven along a road. In the background are fields and trees.Liberal Democrats
Tim Farron says councils across the country are struggling to afford repairs to decades-old bridges

An MP has again urged the government to provide emergency funding to reopen two bridges which have now been closed for more than six months.

Underbarrow and Brigsteer bridges, over the A591 near Kendal, in Cumbria, were closed by Westmorland and Furness Council in June as a precautionary measure after an external expert report found "structural concerns".

In Parliament, Tim Farron, the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, called on the Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander, to meet local authority representatives as a "matter of urgency".

Alexander said she would ask the Minister for Future Roads, Lilian Greenwood, to discuss the matter with councillors.

Known as half-joint bridges because their central section rests on L-shaped joints, the council says they are difficult to inspect and that there has been "worldwide concern" about the issue.

'Dangerously unsafe'

Liberal Democrat Farron, who made a similar plea to the previous transport secretary in August, said the closures had caused "great inconvenience to the local community".

He added: "Hundreds of local authority roads across the country include half-joint bridges built in the 1960s and 1970s that are now dangerously unsafe.

"They were built with government funding 50 or 60 years ago, but local councils are unable to replace them with the funds available to them now."

In her response, Alexander said the Labour government had provided "additional money" for the maintenance of roads, bridges and pavements.

The Department for Transport announced in December Westmorland and Furness Council would receive a highways maintenance allocation of £31.05m in the 2025/26 financial year.

The funding consists of a baseline amount of £22.73m as well as £8.33m in new funding for the upcoming financial year, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The council has said possible short-term solutions include propping the bridges or demolishing them and installing temporary structures.

It has been been approached for comment.

Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].

More on this story
Related internet links