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At best, Hammersmith bridge is likely to be closed for 6 years.


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The news from Australia :

 

The $270 million battle to save an iconic London bridge from falling into the River Thames - ABC News

 

Key points:

  • Hammersmith Bridge has been shut to cars since April 2019 and to pedestrians and cyclists since August 2020
  • The bridge was shut due to the danger of it collapsing, and will require a $270 million renovation to reopen
  • An increase in traffic and the effects of climate change are putting added pressure on all of London's bridges

 

 

The Hammersmith Bridge needs a great deal of tender loving care. Even rowboats cannot pass beneath it for fear it will collapse.

 

No quick fix

There are no quick fixes for the Hammersmith Bridge – the repair cost is estimated at around $270 million, which amounts to the entire annual budget of the local council, and it could take up to six years to reopen.

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It takes an Antipodean to tell it.

 

It's a listed structure  - which is a 'Good Thing'  to protect it, but a complete pain in the arris when you're trying to fix it...

Send the traffic around via Chiswick and Putney I say...... 

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22 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

It takes an Antipodean to tell it.

 

It's a listed structure  - which is a 'Good Thing'  to protect it, but a complete pain in the arris when you're trying to fix it...

Send the traffic around via Chiswick and Putney I say...... 

Is there canal that runs through Chiswick and Putney ?

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Prohibiting boats passing under the bridge seems an extreme precaution so the bridge  must be in serious danger of collapse. The bridge , or at least the metal parts of it and anchorages  have  clearly exceeded their reasonable  life expectancy by a considerable margin. 

 

Six years is probably realistic to take it down and rebuild to current standards but it appears there is no action  .

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There's plenty of funding, just whose funds it will come out of. Ultimately it will be the taxpayer, but the argument will be whether it is counted to local or national government. The prevarication that has gone on for years hasn't helped the situation, and like many infrastructure projects, all the talking in the world contributes nothing. You only have to look at the state of our roads to see how good we are at maintaining facilities.

Perhaps the best example of unjoined-up thinking is the repair/maintenance of the M5 elevated motorway where it crosses the BCN. It has been going on so long, I would think that even some of the scaffolding has had to be replaced.

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2 hours ago, David Mack said:

 

Because there is no funding.

ONE of the directly affected entities could probably raise the funds to start the necessary design and planning works.

NONE of the affected bodies is going to do this as they will then be left holding the whole baby.

Repair/rebuild will go nowhere until Government, LBK&C and TfL get themselves coordinated.  The time to do that will be at least as long as the design and build works, and it won't start happening until the next London mayor has sorted out TfL's other problems.

N

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1 hour ago, Ex Brummie said:

There's plenty of funding, just whose funds it will come out of. Ultimately it will be the taxpayer, but the argument will be whether it is counted to local or national government. The prevarication that has gone on for years hasn't helped the situation, and like many infrastructure projects, all the talking in the world contributes nothing. You only have to look at the state of our roads to see how good we are at maintaining facilities.

Perhaps the best example of unjoined-up thinking is the repair/maintenance of the M5 elevated motorway where it crosses the BCN. It has been going on so long, I would think that even some of the scaffolding has had to be replaced.

 

I thought that this project finished a year or so ago?

 

 

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The bridge should be pensioned off to a nice desert somewhere. The river is only half full, half of the time, so it must be bigger than it needs to be, and the banks could be extended inwards on both sides, reducing the width of the river, and affordable housing should be built upon it.  This principle has been used elsewhere, hasn't it? Then a shorter cheaper new bridge could be built.

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The problem isn't just funding, it's political infighting between the councils north and south of the river. The bridge currently "belongs" to Hammersmith and Fulham (north, Labour) who haven't got the money to repair it. Richmond (south, Tory) has a lot more money and is much more badly affected (their transport links are completely screwed) but won't spend it unless H&F give control of the bridge to them, and they're refusing. Central government doesn't want to pay because they want to keep things like this as the responsibility of the boroughs, so they don't get blamed. TfL have nothing to do with it.

 

All these arguments about the terrible maintenance/state of the bridge have been going on for years but nothing has been done, now it's all gone a bit Pete Tong everyone is blaming everyone else but nothing is actually being done to solve the (very expensive) problem...

Edited by IanD
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The granting by TfL to run a ferry service to Uber/ Thames Clipper is said to make it possible for the bridge to be repaired. How this well help remains to be seen, but at least there will be a form of public transport crossing in place.

  

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Labour council (H&F who own the bridge) and Tory government it was always going to get political. 

 

I forget which forum it was on but apparently a boat went under the bridge recently, authorised passage, and all the alarms started going off so they were unable to get back. It was one of the bunkering barges based down near Tower Bridge going inward bound. 

 

Nothing unusually large but it set the alarms off apparently. 

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48 minutes ago, IanD said:

The problem isn't just funding, it's political infighting between the councils north and south of the river. The bridge currently "belongs" to Hammersmith and Fulham (north, Labour) who haven't got the money to repair it. Richmond (south, Tory) has a lot more money and is much more badly affected (their transport links are completely screwed) but won't spend it unless H&F give control of the bridge to them, and they're refusing. Central government doesn't want to pay because they want to keep things like this as the responsibility of the boroughs, so they don't get blamed. TfL have nothing to do with it.

The bridge was owned by the Greater London Council. When the GLC was abolished its assets were divied up between the boroughs and Transport for London, and this particular asset ended up with H&F. The road over the bridge is part of TfL's strategic highway network, and TfL have been managing the recent repair works. TfL has also submitted funding applications to government for the full repairs, which government have so far rejected.

Edited by David Mack
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17 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

The bridge should be pensioned off to a nice desert somewhere. The river is only half full, half of the time, so it must be bigger than it needs to be, and the banks could be extended inwards on both sides, reducing the width of the river, and affordable housing should be built upon it.  This principle has been used elsewhere, hasn't it? Then a shorter cheaper new bridge could be built.

An imaginative solution, but I think the bridge is a Listed Structure so they wouldn't be allowed to remove it.

One fringe benefit is that we got two exciting and refreshingly different boat races yesterday afternoon, both of which ended with the correct result.

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3 hours ago, Athy said:

An imaginative solution, but I think the bridge is a Listed Structure so they wouldn't be allowed to remove it.

One fringe benefit is that we got two exciting and refreshingly different boat races yesterday afternoon, both of which ended with the correct result.

It was a good race to watch, neck and neck all the way, all 4 so closely matched.

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22 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

The bridge should be pensioned off to a nice desert somewhere. The river is only half full, half of the time, so it must be bigger than it needs to be, and the banks could be extended inwards on both sides, reducing the width of the river, and affordable housing should be built upon it.  This principle has been used elsewhere, hasn't it? Then a shorter cheaper new bridge could be built.

 

download.jpg.415d752f482c66a6b0f0f4572ad1820e.jpg

 

Like this? :)

 

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14 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

So does this mean no boats at all can pass under during the 6 years?

I suppose so, in theory at least. In practice, perhaps one arch will be strengthened to allow passage while they carry out the work on the rest of it.

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21 hours ago, David Mack said:

The bridge was owned by the Greater London Council. When the GLC was abolished its assets were divied up between the boroughs and Transport for London, and this particular asset ended up with H&F. The road over the bridge is part of TfL's strategic highway network, and TfL have been managing the recent repair works. TfL has also submitted funding applications to government for the full repairs, which government have so far rejected.

The road itself is maintained by TfL, but the bridge belongs to H&F. I believe the government has rejected the TfL request for funding for the same reason they rejected H&F, they don't want it to be their problem, and it seems they'd specifically prefer to keep it as H&F's problem so a Labour council gets the blame for not fixing it instead of them.

 

Maybe I'm being cynical and it's not all about politics, but this is what I've been told by people who live there...

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4 hours ago, Athy said:

I suppose so, in theory at least. In practice, perhaps one arch will be strengthened to allow passage while they carry out the work on the rest of it.

 

there are no arches.   It is a suspension bridge cannot be "repaired" in the conventional way.  

 

this suggestion will work as a temporary measure - it basically involves building a conventional Bailey Bridge (think - army, temporary) spanning between the existing foundations of the towers and the landfalls.  https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2020/11/30/double-decker-temporary-fix-for-hammersmith-bridge/

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