Yesterday Essex Highways removed the barricades and opened the bridge up to pedestrians and cyclists in a 2.5 m passage down the middle.  It is very good news that commonsense has now prevailed. Suffolk cyclist commuters to Colchester station will now be able to use the bridge again to Colchester station instead of risking their lives on the busy diversion route.

 It is shocking that it took 2.5 years after the 'emergency' bridge closure in June 2023 to carry out a load test in September 2025 to confirm that the bridge was safe all along for pedestrians and cyclists, not to mention the weekly cost to the tax payer of checking those unnecessary barricades at £34k a year.

The scope of the load test in September was only to see if the centre of the bridge  was safe for pedestrians and no more.  What a wasted opportunity not to also include checking the entire bridge deck if it was safe for vehicles to pass.

Highways now propose Draft permanent closure of the bridge notice to all vehicles. The deadline for consultation is Feb 12. Please write to insist that investigations into repair take place as soon as possible before any permanent closure of the bridge notice to vehicles is approved.

Ref TRAF/ 8871 

trafficregulation.order@essexhighways.org 

Deadlline Feb 12 2026

Thank you

Save our Bridge campaign