Summer opening on the cards for Linton Bridge after floods

The Grade II-listed structure over the River Wharfe between Linton and Collingham has been closed for more than 12 months after the southern arch dropped by eight inches, leaving large cracks and a noticeable dip in the structure.

Now just over a year later work is progressing well, but it will be summer before the residents of Linton and Collingham are re-united.

Coun Richard Lewis, Leeds City Council’s executive member for regeneration, transport and planning said: “Whenever a bridge closes people say you’ve got to do whatever you can to get it re-open immediately but I think people were actually fairly realistic and said in an ideal world its not achievable.

“We all know that its not going to happen quickly, the main thing was coming up with a solution. The design solution took a while. It’s a very complex job.”

Early on engineers had wanted to collapse the southern arch and then rebuild it, but with no guarantee that this might lead to the collapse of the whole bridge, they came up with a new idea. Initially cracks in the arches were repaired with metal ‘stitching’ before temporary supports were erected in the river so that work could begin on reinforcing the piers.

Workmen have been replacing the original wooden foundations of the piers with concrete to strengthen the structure. The bridge will have a total of 52 concrete piles to support it and engineers say it should stand its ground for at least 120 years.