'Brunel spinning in grave' - Bristol's bridge crisis

Bristol is famous for its bridges - from the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge to others in its thriving floating harbour - but recently they have made headlines for the wrong reasons after Pero's Bridge collapsed into the water.

The council has faced accusations of mismanagement as opposition councillors call for greater transparency over action to fix the city's "crumbling" infrastructure.

However, Bristol City Council says it is reversing "decades of under-investment" by spending millions on urgent repairs to bridges across the city, including the wall of the New Cut which is currently at risk of collapse.

These repairs are so expensive that the council has applied for almost £100m in government funding - but what makes Bristol's bridges so difficult and costly to maintain?

Pero's Bridge is due to be repaired in the next couple of weeks after it fell into the Harbour on 31 October.

Some £1.5m was approved in March to fund the repairs but the eventual cost now remains unclear, with a planned reopening in summer 2027.

Labour councillor Tim Rippington, who sits on the Harbour Committee, said: "The council has known the bridge was in poor condition for some time yet it took a catastrophic collapse for the repair work it needed to be carried out."

He called for the council to be "transparent and accountable" over the bridge's repairs.

But Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Brown, who chairs the committee, said the bridge was a victim of "decades of under-investment" in the harbour.

"The previous administration ignored warnings on the potential impact of 'love-locks' on Pero's Bridge," he said.

"We inherited a situation where the bridge could not be raised, restricting harbour operations."

But Pero's Bridge is just one of many in need of repair after what experts say is years of neglect, which is costing the council tens of millions of pounds.

Professor Andrew Graves, a civil engineering and construction expert at the University of Bath, said: "Brunel must be spinning in his grave".

He said: "From the inception, with the design of these bridges it's well known they need a lot of maintenance and obviously it hasn't been carried out."

Repairs to Prince Street Bridge in the harbour are due to get under way in December, followed by the Bedminster Bridges early next year.

The council has committed to spending £18.6m on repairing the New Cut bridges, including several that took longer than was first expected.

Gaol Ferry Bridge, between Southville and Wapping Wharf, took double the time to repair in 2023.

Repairs on Vauxhall Bridge will now take three years to fix instead of two at three times the cost due to the bridge being in a worse condition than expected.

Sparke Evans Park Bridge also took longer than planned to fix for similar reasons.

Other bridges that have recently reopened after repairs include the New Brislington Bridge, the Banana Bridge, also known as the Langton Street Bridge, and Bathhurst Bridge.

The council is also spending £29m on repairing sites of the New Cut wall deemed most at risk after a stretch along Cumberland Road collapsed in 2020.

In a June report to the Harbour Committee, the council said the wall's deterioration was "ongoing and accelerating" and posed a "critical risk" to safety, the local economy and transport system.

The council has said the accelerating deterioration of the New Cut wall was due to high tidal ranges, the structure being more than 200 years old and a "historic lack of routine ongoing maintenance".

Councillor Brown said: "We are committed to continuing annual investment in harbour improvements but addressing this legacy of under-investment will take time."

So much money is required to repair the bridges and river walls that the council has applied to the Department for Transport for nearly £100m over the next five years.

Some £47.9m of this is to fund repairs on the New Cut wall along Coronation Road, where the tide is washing away underlying mud while vegetation and tree roots weaken the rock face from above.

Parts of the wall have already failed and an extreme weather event could lead to the collapse of the south river bank and Coronation Road falling into the river, according to the council.

The other £49.8m would fund urgent repairs to three bridges in the Cumberland Basin.

The Avon Fixed Bridge is in a "very poor condition" and could need to close within 12 years, while nearby Plimsoll and Junction Lock bridges are also in poor condition with recent mechanical faults leading to closures.

Aside from one-off repairs, the council has also said it doesn't have enough money to fund ongoing maintenance that would prevent costly emergency work in future, with an annual shortfall of £3.4m as of 2025.

Graves said the current situation was the result of "a litany of incompetence and short-term thinking".

He said bridges were often "the last thing to get fixed" and that "a lot of money that could have been spent on design and maintenance was spent on other things".

On Pero's Bridge he said padlocks were typically only allowed on static bridges and it was "extraordinary" that it was left hanging after partially collapsing over the summer.

Graves said Bristol was also the victim of its thriving harbour with lots of bridges that open up.

These are more susceptible to faults due to their technical complexity.

The city's rainy climate doesn't help either, he said, as metal structures and hydraulics needed "constant attention and care".

He said: "Bridges are such an important issue, you can't take it lightly, as it has been done in the past."

Councillor Ed Plowden, chair of the Transport Committee, said: "We're continuing to address the wider challenges of our city's ageing infrastructure and a legacy of under-investment, which is not just specific to Bristol but can be seen nationwide."

He said it was "only recently" that the council had started investing "heavily" in the harbour, which would "protect vital infrastructure" and "safeguard these important routes for years to come".

Plowden added that Bristol's "unique" opening bridges require more maintenance than fixed ones.

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