Demolition of Victorian bridge set to be approved

Plans to demolish a bridge built in 1897 and replace it with a modern one are set to be approved.

Boxted Bridge, on the Essex-Suffolk border, was closed to cars and pedestrians in June 2023 as the structure was deteriorating.

Campaigners say there is not enough evidence to show the bridge cannot be repaired.

Essex County Council said a replacement would be similar to the existing structure and planning officers have advised councillors to approve the plan.

Boxted Bridge was built four years before the end of Queen Victoria's reign by the Hadleigh-born builder George Double, who was the foreman on the Cleopatra's Needle project in London.

The steel girder structure, next to a rural road junction, took two-way traffic over the River Stour until its closure in 2023.

The council said an inspection in 2018 found the bridge was "dangerously weak" due to corrosion of the beams underneath the roadway.

It added that vehicles such as refuse lorries and fire engines could not safely manoeuvre at the junction, and there had been a number of vehicle strikes at the bridge and on nearby private property.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the authority plans to demolish the bridge and replace it with a wider structure.

Campaigners claim the council has not shown that demolition is necessary.

Lucinda de Jasay, from the Save Our Bridge campaign, said: "It's about its setting and how it fits in the landscape.

"It's next to a Grade II-listed house, an old cottage. It sits beautifully into that, and it works. There is no need for this enormous bridge."

Colchester City Council has objected to the plan, saying the "increasingly muscular form and upgrading of the associated carriageway on the approaches will harm the designation" as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The countryside charity, the CPRE, said: "We believe that a repair to the current structure is a better way to provide environmental protection to the area and its heritage than a total, expanded rebuild."

A statement submitted with the planning application asserted that "the proposed design avoids any long term harm by taking cues from the existing bridge and the provision of reclaimed materials where possible, thus conserving the natural beauty of the National Landscape."

Planning officers have advised councillors to approve the plan at their meeting on Friday.

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