UK bridges will not meet 40t deadline
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by Sally Nash • With just 18 months to go before the first 40-tonners hit UK roads, the Government finally admitted this week that bridges throughout the country will be unable to cope with the higher axle weights.
Local authorities, struggling to meet the 1 January 1999 deadline for strengthening bridges, might be forced to impose lorry bans to keep traffic off non-trunk roads, warns Transport Minister Baroness Hayman.
"It makes sense for local authorities to concentrate on strengthening only those bridges on the routes where the most substantial flows of HMIs will take place," she says. will be shut down to industry with weight limits on bridges.
"This will obviously have an effect, both economically and environmentally," he adds, "because vehicles will have be re-routed."
CI A row is brewing in Scotland over who is legally responsible for upgrading bridges to handle 40-tonners.
South Lanarkshire Council has received legal opinion that Scottish local authorities, unlike their counterparts in England and Wales, are not responsible for bridge strengthening.