Historic Bridge over the Soar to be demolished

[Roger t' Bodger]

People concerned with the built heritage of the waterways are faced with seeing the magnificent bowstring bridge, that spans the old Soar on Leicester, being levelled for a students sports facility. All of this has been done in a private deal; between the City Council and De Montfort University (Leicester Poly) where the Poly will pay £1 for the site.

The local Civic Society have made this facinating film about the bridge and the story behind it's possible demise. There will be a big demo on the 12th September outside the town hall as people feel very strongly about the way the Councillors and council officers have behaved.

 

 

This is the address of the Leicester Civic Society:- http://www.leicestercivicsociety.org.uk/

 

For the Facebook site go to:- http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6836653155

Edited August 24, 2009 by Roger t' Bodger

[RLWP]

People concerned with the built heritage of the waterways are faced with seeing the magnificent bowstring bridge, that spans the old Soar on Leicester, being levelled for a students sports facility. All of this has been done in a private deal; between the City Council and De Montfort University (Leicester Poly) where the Poly will pay £1 for the site.

The local Civic Society have made this facinating film about the bridge and the story behind it's possible demise. There will be a big demo on the 12th September outside the town hall as people feel very strongly about the way the Councillors and council officers have behaved.

 

 

Hi Roger,

 

could you edit your posting to include links to the Leicester Civic Society and the facebook page mentioned in the video.

 

Good luck with this campaign

 

Richard

[churchward]

Interesting, I went to have a look at the bridge when we were passing on the boat this year. It would be a great shame for it to be destroyed.

 

It would be good to see alternative plans for development of the area that includes the bridge remaining.

[Hairy-Neil]

I read somewhere (probably the railway preservation mags) a couple of years ago that this bridge had to go because it was getting dangerous and nobody would foot the bill for the extensive repairs it needed to make it safe. I guess that was just a cover for the deal going on in the background to sell the land.....

[NB Alnwick]

Interesting, I went to have a look at the bridge when we were passing on the boat this year. It would be a great shame for it to be destroyed.

 

It would be good to see alternative plans for development of the area that includes the bridge remaining.

 

Sadly the bridge was allowed to deteriorate following the final closure of the GC route through Leicester. Some relatively recent work was carried out but we have to acknowledge that this is a massive riveted steel structure that is now over 110 years old and it was only properly maintained for the first 60 years or so of its life!

 

Providing fast freight and passenger services between Sheffield and the South, the Great Central route would have proved extremely useful during the 21st Century but it was the subject of an interregional political death sentence that took no account of future needs. The line was substantially built to carry heavy traffic, could have been easily expanded fro two to four tracks and was extensively modernised during the 1940s and early 1950s. Then the politics which had their origins with the Midland Railway at Derby half a Century earlier started. First, Derby argued that rather than be part of the Eastern Region administration of the British Transport Commission, the GC route should be included in the London Midland Region along with its former Midland Railway competitor. The transfer took place at the end of 1958 and this saw the end of the splendid named express trains hauled by Gresley Pacifics - to be replaced by a limited service of 'semi-fast' trains between Nottingham and London that ran at times that suited very few passengers. After this maintenance was downgraded to the level of a secondary route rather than a main line and it is doubtful if the Bowstring Bridge (or any other steel structures) received a proper attention under London Midland Region control. In 1963, before publication of 'The Plan', it was announced that most local services would cease and that many intermediate and country stations north of Aylesbury would close. Freight services were wound down and transferred to other routes in 1965 and 1966 saw the last through trains to London and the South. By this time the line was in a more or less derelict state but a miserable excuse for a train service was maintained with diesel railcars between Nottingham and Rugby for a further two and a half years and with the exception of the sections now owned by the heritage lines between Ruddington and Leicester, track lifting and demolition proceeded with obscene haste between 1969 and 1973

[alan_fincher]

.................and with the exception of the sections now owned by the heritage lines between Ruddington and Leicester, track lifting and demolition proceeded with obscene haste between 1969 and 1973

Graham,

 

I know you are a railway historian, so I hope you'll not mind some of my standard added pedantry...

 

Another section of the GCR survived, namely the line north of Aylesbury through Quainton and Grendon Underwood.

 

This was "freight only" use usually, but did also receive passenger traffic when steam specials were run on it between Aylesubry and the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton.

 

I've been on there many years ago on a train with a King on one end and a Castle on the other, with an enforced slowing down at each of the surviving ove-rbridges, where the top of the King really was perilously close to the bridge structures. (No safety valves knocked off on that occasion!).

 

I assume the line is still there, but have not been there for many years. It has always seemed such a logical step to me that it should one day be used by the BRC to run their own steam trains to Aylesbury, but I have no idea of the possible difficulties in that development ever happening.

 

p.s. If London Midland did neglect lines like these and the Cambrian route, it seeds fair revenge for what the Western meeted out on the poor old Somerset & Dorset when that fell to their fate.

[LEO]

Graham,

 

I know you are a railway historian, so I hope you'll not mind some of my standard added pedantry...

 

Another section of the GCR survived, namely the line north of Aylesbury through Quainton and Grendon Underwood.

 

The line has been upgraded and passenger use now extends to a newly constructed station - Aylesbury Parkway - built to serve the new estates being planned and built on the northern outskirts of Aylesbury.

 

Leo

[NB Alnwick]

Another section of the GCR survived, namely the line north of Aylesbury through Quainton and Grendon Underwood.

 

Quite right! The line remains as a freight only section as far as the former L&NWR Oxford-Cambridge line which it now joins via a very sharp curve in the direction of Bletchley.

 

p.s. If London Midland did neglect lines like these and the Cambrian route, it seeds fair revenge for what the Western meeted out on the poor old Somerset & Dorset when that fell to their fate.

 

 

Indeed - these tit-for-tat petty politics had some influence on the final version of the 'Beeching Plan'.

 

In retrospect, it has to be said that we just didn't realise what valuable assets and jobs were being taken from us by a bunch of greedy politicians eager to feather their own nests - have things really changed?

[churchward]

p.s. If London Midland did neglect lines like these and the Cambrian route, it seeds fair revenge for what the Western meeted out on the poor old Somerset & Dorset when that fell to their fate.

Oh dear we won't let truth or logic get in the way of a heart felt prejudice then!

 

In retrospect, it has to be said that we just didn't realise what valuable assets and jobs were being taken from us by a bunch of greedy politicians eager to feather their own nests - have things really changed?

Trouble is that retrospect looks through some very nostalgic rose coloured spectacles. I am no fan of what the Beeching report did to our country network of railways but we also have to recognise that many of the lines and branch lines closed saw a pitiful few passengers or freight leading up to closure and most likely saw the most passenger tickets sold on their last day. A lesson for the modern age is if you want a public transport system (or indeed some of the quieter canals in Birmingham) to remain then use it or lose it.

[Roger t' Bodger]

It was the idea of motorised personal transport for everyone combined with the growth of motorways and private commercial transport companies undercutting the railways that dealt the death blow to a transport system 130 year old.

 

Beeching was a road transport man who saw the mainly antiquated steam powered system as rubbish. Europe was far ahead in modernisation due to the WW11 knocking out much of the continent's systems. It was all an unfortunate series of events that led to the feeder railways (branch lines) as being seen as redundant. We are all still suffering from the dominance of the motor car but it will end at some point when we can't sustain it any longer and it will be looked back upon as a period of collective madness.

 

Years ago my friend looking out of a rain lashed London Transport RT bus said to me, "You know, if they made everywhere the same, then we wouldn't have to go anywhere...." We aren't far from the logic of that musing with every shopping centre and high street and housing estate looking and offering the same deal.

[churchward]

It was the idea of motorised personal transport for everyone combined with the growth of motorways and private commercial transport companies undercutting the railways that dealt the death blow to a transport system 130 year old.

 

Beeching was a road transport man who saw the mainly antiquated steam powered system as rubbish. Europe was far ahead in modernisation due to the WW11 knocking out much of the continent's systems.

There is some truth in that but don't forget Germany was one of the last western (ie not in the eastern block) European countries to give up use of steam for locomotion. Some of the eastern block countries even later.

[RLWP]

Trouble is that retrospect looks through some very nostalgic rose coloured spectacles. I am no fan of what the Beeching report did to our country network of railways but we also have to recognise that many of the lines and branch lines closed saw a pitiful few passengers or freight leading up to closure and most likely saw the most passenger tickets sold on their last day. A lesson for the modern age is if you want a public transport system (or indeed some of the quieter canals in Birmingham) to remain then use it or lose it.

 

 

I held that view - that the only factors that count are purely commercial - until I read some of the activities that took place to "justify" closing the Settle and Carlisle. There are echos of that story in what Graham said about the GCR.

 

Richard

[NB Alnwick]

There is some truth in that but don't forget Germany was one of the last western (ie not in the eastern block) European countries to give up use of steam for locomotion. Some of the eastern block countries even later.

 

Most other European countries (Eire excepted), and especially West Germany, had a much more rational view about their public transport responsibilities and did not allow the British example of constant interference by greedy self-interest politicians with their ill-conceived short term plans. As an example, the minister who appointed Richard Beeching had a financial interest in the firm that stood to gain the biggest slice of the cake from motorway and road construction - although he always argued that this was not the case because ownership of Marples-Ridgeway was in his wife's name and the fact that she owned the company did not influence his political decisions!

 

Back on the subject of the ill-fated bridge. In my view its value as an historical structure is no more or less than the viaduct that once carried the GC main line over the LNWR at Rugby - the last section of that particular structure was demolished by Network Rail on Christmas Day last year.

[churchward]

I held that view - that the only factors that count are purely commercial - until I read some of the activities that took place to "justify" closing the Settle and Carlisle. There are echos of that story in what Graham said about the GCR.

 

Richard

I didn't say that was my view although the economics of the status of the railways or any other business cannot be ignored. It is just too cozy to think it was some political tyranny biased toward road transport or similar conspiracy. It is also true to say that there were indeed people with interests and agendas that didn't favor railways. Situations are rarely so simple to be able to be explained away by blaming one man or one decision/viewpoint.

 

Most other European countries (Eire excepted), and especially West Germany, had a much more rational view about their public transport responsibilities and did not allow the British example of constant interference by greedy self-interest politicians with their ill-conceived short term plans. As an example, the minister who appointed Richard Beeching had a financial interest in the firm that stood to gain the biggest slice of the cake from motorway and road construction - although he always argued that this was not the case because ownership of Marples-Ridgeway was in his wife's name and the fact that she owned the company did not influence his political decisions!

 

Back on the subject of the ill-fated bridge. In my view its value as an historical structure is no more or less than the viaduct that once carried the GC main line over the LNWR at Rugby - the last section of that particular structure was demolished by Network Rail on Christmas Day last year.

I agree that shouldn't have come down either. Although as I said some posts further up in order to be worthy of staying up and maintained it does need incorporating into some building scheme or amenity. It is hard to justify the cost if it is only going to stand there as a lump of metal unconnected to the people who live there or the life of the city.

[Roger t' Bodger]

After the GCR was closed the Bowstring Bridge was iintegrated into a new use and that was to carry the Great Central Way over a busy junction. The Council closed the footpath over the bridge saying that the bridge was unsafe so a new ground level path was constructed along side to link up this Sustrans route (see film). The proposals by De Montfort University are so big that this cycle pedestrian route will be built over. As DMU are keeping their plans secret from the public we don't know what alternatives there will be. The situation is that English Heritage have rejected a listing for the structure and no protected species of bats or newts have been spotted, also the Council's interpretation of planning law of major new developments means that no planning approval is required to demolish it. So kiss it goodbye and hello more crappy sport facility architecture mainly for self-centred students. Demo on the 12th September in Leicester Town Hall Square to express our immense displeasure of this stitch-up by our servants and elected councillors.

 

What they don;'t realise is that this has been quite a education for thousands of ordinary people who have become quite politicised by it. Next year is the local elections and thousands of Leicester people are going to stand (including me) as independents so there will be quite an upset generally as far as the established political parties are concerned.

 

Chickens coming home to roost....

[churchward]

After the GCR was closed the Bowstring Bridge was iintegrated into a new use and that was to carry the Great Central Way over a busy junction. The Council closed the footpath over the bridge saying that the bridge was unsafe so a new ground level path was constructed along side to link up this Sustrans route (see film). The proposals by De Montfort University are so big that this cycle pedestrian route will be built over. As DMU are keeping their plans secret from the public we don't know what alternatives there will be. The situation is that English Heritage have rejected a listing for the structure and no protected species of bats or newts have been spotted, also the Council's interpretation of planning law of major new developments means that no planning approval is required to demolish it. So kiss it goodbye and hello more crappy sport facility architecture mainly for self-centred students. Demo on the 12th September in Leicester Town Hall Square to express our immense displeasure of this stitch-up by our servants and elected councillors.

 

What they don;'t realise is that this has been quite a education for thousands of ordinary people who have become quite politicised by it. Next year is the local elections and thousands of Leicester people are going to stand (including me) as independents so there will be quite an upset generally as far as the established political parties are concerned.

 

Chickens coming home to roost....

Good for you I hope you succeed, it is always much better to try and do something than just moan the state of affairs.