Four closures planned for Severn Bridge
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• The Severn Bridge will be closed four times during the next two winters to allow essential maintenance work to take place, Roads Minister Peter Bottomley announced this week.
Bottomley says the work has been planned to minimise interference with traffic, and both lanes in each direction will be kept open all day during the summer and at all peak periods throughout the year.
Most nights, one lane in each direction will be closed as well as off-peak between September and May. During a few winter weekends one entire carriageway will have to be closed, with all traffic diverted to the other.
The four closures will take place early on Sunday mornings in the winter, and traffic will be diverted for 96km (60 miles) around Gloucester. The Department of Transport has already imposed a 65kmph speed limit on the bridge. Bottomley says the Government is not proposing an increase in tolls either before the General Election or immediately afterwards. Progress is being made on the second Severn crossing, and the department plans to hold a competition soon for the selection of consultants for the next stage.
Junior Welsh Office Minister Winn Roberts says that the Government hopes to provide the second crossing by 1995.