Minister should resolve county bridge deadlock

THE logical solution suggested by SMR (Letters HT, April 19) to the recurring problem of lorries impacting the railway bridge on the A5 which has earned it notoriety as “Britain’s most bashed bridge”- is so glaringly obvious that readers must wonder why it has not been acted on previously.

The answer, I suspect, is that the cost of replacing the bridge with a higher and wider structure would fall to Railtrack, the company responsible for the maintenance of Britain’s railway infrastructure but who have been minimally inconvenienced by the regular incidents.

It is road traffic and transport which has been massively inconvenienced every time a hapless lorry driver wedges his vehicle under the bridge, blocking the road and causing long tailbacks which often take hours to clear.

The accumulated cost of these regular events has been calculated as amounting to many millions of pounds - yet the Highways Authority say they need more evidence before determining the action needed!

Travellers using the M42 south of Birmingham recently will be aware of the massive bridges which have been built to span the carriageways, using pre-constructed sections, with minimal disruption to the traffic.

The same construction techniques could solve the A5 problem permanently while causing no significant problems to road traffic flow. Given that Railtrack and the Highways Authority, although separately managed, both come under the umbrella of the Department of Transport, it clearly calls for a decision to be taken at a ministerial level to resolve the present deadlock with its commercial costs.

Perhaps our MP could help find the way forward? A.Y., Burbage.