We welcome you to read Westmorland and Furness Council’s 'Brigsteer and Underbarrow Bridge Closures Newsletter' that will be issued once every month.

The newsletter aims to keep our residents and local businesses updated with the latest information on the bridge closures and present the work we are delivering to restore these links for our communities.

Progress continues on the essential work to assess and ensure the safety of the bridges

The Assessment and Category 3 (Cat 3) checking processes to determine if the bridges have any capacity to carry traffic are progressing well.

Calculations are substantially complete, and co-ordination meetings have taken place to compare the initial results from both WSP (the Assessment Engineers) and Jacobs (the Cat 3 Checker).

Significant strides have been made, however further work needs to be undertaken before results can be finalised and options for restoring access across the bridges can be confirmed.

Further monitoring continues to ensure the safety of the A591

The monthly monitoring we undertake to ensure that the A591 is safe to remain open continued with an inspection on 10 December 2024.

As with previous inspections, the half joints were accessed using a cherry picker, and inspected using a borescope. This concluded that there was no evidence of any deterioration of the half joints since the previous inspection and that the A591 remains safe.

Traffic management concerns addressed following feedback raised at the community event

Acting on feedback raised by attendees of the community event in October, new traffic management signage has been ordered and will be installed in January 2025.

Here is a reminder of detail we shared in the November newsletter:

Contacting the team 

We encourage you to continue sharing your queries on the bridge closures directly to our team by submitting an enquiry on the highways online reporting form found at westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk. 

Monthly meetings also continue with impacted Town and Parish Councils who will represent the voice of your community, so please continue to raise issues via them and we will aim to provide answers. 

Background to closing Brigsteer and Underbarrow bridges

The decision to close Brigsteer and Underbarrow bridges on the 12 June 2024 was based on the clear findings of a specialist report conducted by independent experts, Jacobs, as a part of Westmorland and Furness Council's ongoing safety assessments.

The report found structural concerns, requiring the Council to remove all applied load from the bridges including all vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. This was an unavoidable decision to ensure the safety of all road users travelling underneath on the A591.

Nothing in our past maintenance regime is likely to have prevented the need to close these bridges. The structural concerns relate to the design of the bridge, not their maintenance.

More information on our assessment process and frequently asked questions can be found on westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk.

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