Severn pressure grows
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PRESSURE was growing on the build a second Severn crossing.
A conference of 150 industrialists, trade unionists and politicians from all shades of the spectrum united in Cardiff to demand an immediate feasibility study into a second crossing, as well as the improvement of alternative routes into Wales as an insurance against major delays on the bridge.
But Ministers still seem determined not to give in to the pressures while they regard the bridge as adequate for forecast traffic flows once it is operating at full capacity again.
There are high hopes that the £33m programme of repair works to strengthen the bridge, particularly the towers and cable hangers, will start in January subject to a specialist contractor being available.
The urgency of the need to get the repairs under way was highlighted by the final Flint and Neill report to the Department of Transport, which was released by the department last week.
The consultants warned that without any repair work the latest traffic restrictions could be regarded as reasonable safeguards for only two years — a fact Mr Ridley did not reveal.
He also failed to tell MPs that two people, equipped with walkie-talkies, patrolled the bridge constantly between 8am and 4pm to stop queues in the event of a crash or breakdown.
At the same time both operators are trying to ensure that lorries are spaced out between at least four cars. Government this week to agree to ' Flint and Neill made clear it's disagreement with many of the gloomier assessments made in the check report by Mott, Hay and Anderson, which gave rise to so many fears about the bridge.
At the conference John Turner, chairman of the Confederation of British Industry's Severn Bridge Committee, warned that the repairs might not be completed until 1989. He said users needed adequate warning of disruptions so that their schedules could be changed.
Mr Turner urged the Government to assume that traffic growth across the Severn Bridge would be higher than elsewhere in Britain.