Inspections to bridges in Peterborough's Cuckoos Hollow revealed 'rotting' structures in danger of collapse

Inspections to three bridges at Cuckoos Hollow in Peterborough uncovered rotting structures that were in danger of collapse, it has been revealed.

More details of the state of the bridges, which were shut to the public on Monday, have been released by Peterborough City Council as it reacted to criticism that the closures took place too quickly and without public consultation.

The local authority announced on Friday that the bridges at Baron Court, Lakeside and Welbourne would be closed from Monday for the foreseeable future because of safety fears.

A council spokesperson said: “Since this announcement, the council has received several questions from members of the public and would like to re-iterate that the decision was taken following independent advice, with the authority mindful of its duty of public safety.

"Whilst it is evident that the structures currently have enough capacity to support their own weight, rotting has impaired their ability to support pedestrian loading."

He said the council was investigating options for temporary repairs but as the deterioration was ‘significant’ in many areas, the cost was likely to be prohibitive.”

Inspections of the bridges found rotting to the main structural members of the bridges, including the main longitudinal beams, transverse beams and the bracing timbers for the deck planks and the parapets.

A reasonable amount of the deterioration has occurred on the underside of the structures, which is not visible from the bridge decks and the rotting has ‘compromised the load carrying capacity of the bridges’.

The council says the normal inspection regime for bridges is every two years.

The last general inspection of the footbridges at Cuckoos Hollow identified signs of degradation at which point the inspection frequency was increased and in the last three months this was increased further to weekly inspections.

Councillor Gavin Elsey, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Environment and Climate Change, said: “The level of deterioration currently exceeds any margin of safety that would have been incorporated in the original bridge design.

"This will eventually mean that the structures have insufficient capacity to carry the loads applied to it, creating a risk of collapse.

“The bridges are now at the point where they are presenting an unreasonable public health and safety risk, hence why we took the decision to close them.

"It is not possible to say when a collapse might happen, however, given the rate of deterioration, our utmost priority is to maintain public safety and remove pedestrian access.”

The bridges had already been identified for replacement in the 2024/2025 financial year and early designs and construction surveys are being carried out and it is expected that building works will start this summer or autumn.

The new bridges will be wider than the current structures and improve accessibility for the users of Cuckoos Hollow.

The council says Cuckoos Hollow is still fully accessible by foot/bicycle and suitable alternative routes are available.

However, Cllr Bryan Tyler, who has criticised the closure decision, has said that hundreds of people have been inconvenienced by the speed at which the closures were carried out.