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More weight bars on road bridges

1st September 1994
Page 6
Page 6, 1st September 1994 — More weight bars on road bridges
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by Eugene Silke • Many new weight restrictions are being slapped on road bridges around the UK and more will follow in the run-up to the arrival of 40-tonners in 1999.

The British Road Federation is warning that the job of strengthening bridges on local authority A-roads—the bulk of the trunk road network—will not be completed until 2005. This means that from now until the strengthening work is finished, many more bridge weight restrictions will have to be imposed.

BRF assistant director Paul Everitt says a growing number of bridges are also failing the council engineers' tests for 38tonne vehicles. The Department of Transport is aware of the problem of bridges failing their assessments, says Oxfordshire deputy county engineer Andrew Leadbeater.

In a report for the County Sur veyors' Society, Leadbeater estimates it will cost almost £2bn to A new traffic sign is being introduced at weak bridges while they are strengthened which restricts trucks to their maximum authorised gross weight (MGW), a vehicle's operating or plated weight. This replaces the old sign (pictured) showing the actual weight of the vehicle. bring bridges (excluding those on trunk roads and motorways owned by the Department of Transport) up to the 40-tonrter standard. Councils are now expected to strengthen road bridges owned by RailTrack as well as their own, but the Government is granting only half of what is needed, says the report.

English councils received just £137m of the £210m sought for bridge works this year.

At that rate, it will be 2002/2003 before the work is done, according to Leadbeater.


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