Road over Winterburn Bridge to reopen

The Oldfield to Wrickton road at Winterburn Bridge near Bridgnorth will reopen to traffic at 6pm this Friday (25 July 2008).

The road has been closed to traffic since last autumn when part of the bridge was found to have collapsed as a result of the heavy flooding experienced last summer. Since then traffic has been diverted along the nearby B4364 road via Cleobury North.

Originally, Shropshire County Council had planned to replace the bridge this summer. Unfortunately, this has since had to be postponed until next summer due to there being insufficient budget available this year to repair all the damage caused county-wide by the flooding.

The building of the new bridge is now programmed to start next March and is expected to last for a period of about five months.

In the meantime, in order to enable the road to be reopened until March, work started in June to temporarily pipe the Winterburn Brook under the road using two 1.5 metre diameter pipes. This work will be completed on Friday thus enabling the road to be reopened.

Unfortunately it will be necessary to close the road again in March to enable the new bridge to be built.

The piping of the brook can only be a temporary solution as the pipes are not big enough to carry the brook when in full flood.

John Williams, Shropshire County Council’s Bridge Team Leader, said: “It is appreciated that the closure of the bridge has caused some inconvenience. Next year’s bridge replacement work has been deliberately programmed to
avoid the combine harvest season and we will do all that we reasonably can to keep that road closure to a minimum.”

23 July 2008