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Serious action is needed to protect the future of a Grade II listed bridge that spans the River Ribble at Ribchester, the borough’s MP has claimed.
The bridge on Blackburn Road was struck again in the past week, knocking huge blocks of stone into the water below. It was the latest in a long line of collisions which have blighted the key river crossing in recent years and has seen temporary traffic lights installed at the bridge.
Asked by Blog Preston about what could be done to stop the damage occurring, Ribble Valley MP Maya Ellis and Ribchester’s borough councillor, Karl Barnsley, both called on Lancashire County Council (LCC) to consider a range of traffic calming measures.
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Ms Ellis said: “It’s a huge shame to have such repeated damage to this beautiful bridge, which is a big part of our heritage, as well as being a critical route through the area.
“I will be speaking with Lancashire County Council to ask if we can at the very least put more significant chevron signs in place to make clear how sharp the turns are, and ideally delay the national speed limit switch until after the bridge out of Ribchester.
“It would also be great to have rumble strips added in to slow people down before they turn. At this stage I can’t imagine any of this would cost more than the repeated repairs are costing.”
Cllr Barnsley said the ongoing accidents on De Tabley Bridge had become ‘a source of bemusement, disbelief and frustration’ for the many residents in the area.
He added: “It beggars belief that LCC councillors seem content to simply make repairs when the bridge gets damaged and not implement proper controls to stop the accidents happening in the first place.
“If they introduced simple traffic control measures, then I’m sure that would be cheaper than continuous repairs. I’d be very interested to see how much repairs to the bridge have cost over the past few years.”
Matt Townsend, director of Highways and Transport at LCC, said: “There are temporary two way traffic lights at Blackburn Road in Ribchester, due to emergency repair work to replace the damaged sections of the bridge.
“Weather pending, the work should take no longer than four weeks.”
It is almost 30 years since the road on both sides of the bridge was changed to allow vehicles to swing round more widely on their approach to the crossing. Ironically, given the recent damage, the tight turns at the time had led to several vehicles striking the bridge and causing significant damage.
The bridge was built in 1789 and has been a crossing point for centuries before that.
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