Ralph Oswick: New bridge rules a weight off everyone’s minds
Normally I make it my business to never sign petitions. As a reasonably recognisable face, I have on occasions been harangued on the number thirteen bus for nailing my knickers to the mast.
Besides, for many years I was a director of a registered charity and obliged to be politically neutral.
However, I did recently put my name to the petition asking for the temporary weight limit which has been imposed on Cleveland Bridge to be made permanent.
I’ve even been encouraging others to do likewise.
Persistence pays off – after many years of Bathwick residents continually pleading with the council, the 18-tonne weight limit effectively cuts off the somewhat tortuous rat run used by countless large HGVS to get from the A303 to the M4.
The trucks have gradually got bigger and recently vehicles roughly the size of one of the Georgian houses in Bathwick Street laid on its side have been seen rumbling over the fragile structure!
Many take advantage of the quieter sunrise slot, giving long suffering residents the briefest window of respite.
The weight limit was first proposed some 14 years ago, and the signage was all but ready to go up, but Wiltshire Council objected and people also lobbied on behalf of the haulage industry so the plan was thwarted.
If they thought it was bad back then, the problems of vibration, noise and pollution have increased meteorically, and understandably local residents feel it is time Wiltshire took a turn.
I have several friends who live along London Road and Bathwick Street and they are thrilled with the changes that have occurred since the temporary ban was introduced.
Apart from a few naughty ones, virtually no large lorries have crossed the bridge and people’s quality of life has improved exponentially.
The limit has been imposed so a survey can be carried out with a view to further strengthening works. Residents fear that, when complete, this will simply mean a return to the status quo.
Others opine that the structure which was designed only for horsedrawn traffic has been so weakened that collapse is imminent.
I wouldn’t go that far but, after all, you wouldn’t treat your valuable 1826 antique china cabinet with such gay abandon, piling it up until the shelves bent and the legs creaked!
Fourteen years seems to be a long time to have done nothing, but then Widcombe residents had to campaign for nigh on thirty before they got their bypass.
Eventually the Widcombe Rising street parties proved that Rossiter
Road could be made two way, thus finally placing a cherry firmly on the cake that the residents’ association had been stirring valiantly for three decades.
They too are celebrating the reduction in heavy traffic as a knock-on effect from the Cleveland Bridge weight limit, though the polluting leviathans no longer trundle directly past their blackened parlour windows.
So, as I’m now retired from the charity and no longer use the number thirteen bus, I was more than happy to go online and sign the petition (anonymously, of course).