Town rail bridge may be closed off
Wednesday 12th August 2009, 10:58AM BST.
Council bosses are planning to close off Oswestry’s landmark iron railway footbridge to pedestrians for up to five years.
The Gobowen Road bridge, part of Oswestry’s industrial heritage, is too unsafe for pedestrians, Shropshire Council chiefs have said.
They have lodged an application to put up gates at the bottom of each staircase to prevent pedestrians getting on to the bridge.
A footpath which ran over the bridge was diverted earlier this year and the footbridge has been closed since work began on creating an access road to Oswestry’s new £30 million health village at the end of last year.
In their planning application, council chiefs say: “A structural assessment has been carried out which has determined that the footbridge is weak and not capable of meeting requirements of pedestrian loading without additional work.
“Until that work is carried out, Shropshire Council intend to temporarily close the footbridge for a period of up to five years.”
Members of the Cambrian Railways Trust had hoped to be handed responsibility for the bridge but at present it still remains the responsibility of the council, trust spokesman Henry Thomas said today.
He said: “The lease we have signed for the railway excludes the footbridge for the time being until certain issues are resolved.
“In due course we hope to reinstate public access to the bridge.”
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Five years? Not a very good council, Shropshire County Council, is it?
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There is no Shropshire County Council anymore. We had Unitary elections remember? But I’d agree……… 5 years? When the Cambrian Railway Trust is trying to get that area revitalised? 5 years when the new medical centre is being built and people will need safe pedestrian access? % years, when the 5 acre site will be landscaped and improved as a social space and will also require access? It makes you despair, it truly does.
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Five years! Why? if it was a new bridge over the Severn in Shrewsbury or a shopping centre in Telford it would be done yesterday, is because Oswestry is the poor man’s town of Shropshire some back water that nobody cares about in the white walls of shire hall..Well I do and so do the people of Oswestry lets have some answers!!!! instead of putting things on the back burner and hoping it will all go away
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