Just days until bridge reopens (From Ledbury Reporter)

Just days until bridge reopens

5:00pm Tuesday 23rd June 2009

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RESIDENTS and business owners in Colwall are looking forward to being able to use the bridge over the railway line when it reopens on Friday.

The bridge was closed suddenly in August 2007 after engineers discovered structural problems. It was later reopened with a weight limit, but shut again at the start of this year for the work to be done.

Parish council chairman Nicky Carless said: "Everyone's looking forward to it. People have been asking if it's really true. Traders will be delighted, and residents will be glad not to have to go through the back lanes."

Iain Nesbitt, owner of Colwall Park Hotel, said: "Traders well welcome this news with open arms. Since the bridge closed, we've essentially lost all our trade from Ledbury and the south. But it will take time for people to change the habits they've formed over the last 18 months."

County councillor Roy Stockton said: "It's a happy day for Colwall. We have suffered through the bridge not being open, and we have all been looking forward to this day. Let us hope that it will now last for another 100 years. I would like to thank the villagers of Colwall and the surrounding areas for being so patient and helpful."

Tim Newman, owner of butcher Newmans of Colwall, said: "I'd like to think trade will come bouncing back to want it was before the bridge closed, but people get into new habits. And we've got the economic situation now, which wasn't there went the bridge originally closed. If I claw back 15 per cent of the trade I lost, I'll be doing OK."

Work around the site will continue for another week, to allow the compound to be cleared and disturbed ground to be reinstated, but Network Rail says this will not affect traffic.

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