Four one-night closures planned from now to November for essential maintenance.
Karen Cassar, assistant director for Highways said: “The hydraulic lifting jacks are fundamental to the operation of the swing bridge and have been identified as faulty and need urgent attention.
“Expert teams will be carrying out four separate maintenance schemes which will involve a night-time closure of the bridge for one-night at a time.
“The crew will be removing and servicing each hydraulic jack which are used in moving the bridge. Each night of work will be for one set of jack works at a time. Each jack will be replaced with a serviced jack that has been refurbished and re-sealed.
“The work is being carried out using single night closures to minimise disruption on the highway network. In order to access these critical parts of the bridge, the bridge itself needs to be partly swung open to enable our contractors to get access.
“Because of this, we have no other option than to close the road whilst the works are undertaken. The timing of the overnight road closures will be from 7pm until 6am to avoid peak travel times so as to lessen disruption on the local road network as much as possible.”
Location of works
The works will be carried out at Cross Keys Bridge, Sutton Bridge.
Dates and times
The set of four planned works will be carried out on four separate nights.
Each closure as planned is listed below (please note that closures three and four have two options for when to go ahead and that the confirmed dates will be made known as soon as they are confirmed).
- Closure 1 – Thursday 5 June
- Closure 2 – Thursday 28 August
- Closure 3 – either Monday 29 September or Monday 13 October
- Closure 4 – either Monday 10 November or Monday 24 November
Work times on-site will be from 7pm to 6am. A road closure is needed throughout for each night, with a road diversion using like-for-like roads in place.
Traffic management
A road closure is required for the duration of the works with a diversion route in place throughout.
Diversion route
The signed diversion route will be diverting east via A17 / A47 / B198 / A1101 / A17 and vice versa for westbound on the A17.
Karen Cassar added: “These repairs will enable the continued use of Cross Keys Swing Bridge to allow it to serve both vehicular and marine traffic. By carrying out these schemes we will prevent further damage to these key mechanical parts, which ultimately reduces the need to close the bridge for long periods of time in the future.
“Our Closure 3 and 4 dates will be confirmed closer to the time, with at least two weeks of notice. At the moment, we cannot be absolutely firm when the bridge can be serviced in that part of its schedule, so we have booked in two possible dates to allow flexibility so that the works are completed.
“Lincolnshire County Council has a legal duty to maintain navigation on the River Nene to permit the passage of ships going to/from the Port of Wisbech. We will do everything possible to deliver the work with the minimum of disruption and I’d like to thank everyone effected by this scheme for their patience and understanding whilst the jacks are replaced.”
For up-to-date information about this and other roadworks, please visit www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/roadworks.