Row over £50m Cumberland Basin repairs plan for deteriorating roads

Opposition councillors have criticised Bristol City Council leaders for keeping them in the dark about a £50m plan to repair Avon Bridge and the Cumberland Basin road network.

Green councillor for Lockleaze, David Wilcox, chair of the growth & regeneration scrutiny committee, told a cabinet meeting that the Labour administration had failed to tell them about the major renovation project or anything beyond “vague” wider future plans for the area it has renamed Western Harbour.

He said that all his cross-party committee, which scrutinises major council projects, had been asked to comment on so far was the “public consultation, poetry and children’s drawings”.

Mayor Marvin Rees’s cabinet approved an initial £4.25m on Tuesday for repairs to the crumbling 1960s structures.

Councillors were told the work, expected to last five years starting with inspections and maintenance, was “essential to avoid uncontrolled deterioration”of Avon Bridge whose design is no longer approved because the risk of “potential catastrophic failure” is too high.

Fears of a “catastrophic failure” of Avon Bridge have prompted Bristol City Council leaders to kickstart up to £50m of repairs to the crumbling Cumberland Basin road network – photo: Martin Booth

Cabinet member for transport, Don Alexander, said the aim was to manage the decline of the elevated trunk roads and bridge, which are at the end of their projected lifespan.

Alexander, Labour councillor for Avonmouth & Lawrence Weston, said it gave the council the opportunity to unlock land through the Western Harbour development, which is in the master-planning stage and envisages hundreds of new and affordable homes, better transport links and flood defences.

But he said it would be up to the new administration after next May’s local elections to determine what should go there and that councillors needed to stop delaying the revamp and get together to make a decision.

Wilcox said: “I am concerned about the lack of member scrutiny and awareness of this potentially multi-million-pound project.

“The Western Harbour plans have come to growth & regeneration twice in the previous two years, and we have only been asked to comment on the public consultation, poetry and children’s drawings – nothing to do with this level of infrastructure has been presented.”

Wilcox said all councillors should be briefed on timescales, issues and expected traffic numbers, along with new proposals for the route.

He said funding for the later stages of the road repairs, estimated at a total cost of £40m to £50m, may not be realistic or appropriate because one government-funded pot of money it could come from, the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement, should not be used to encourage more car use.

#Bristol City Council’s cabinet has approved proposals for a new monitoring and intensive repair plan for Cumberland Basin flyover worth up to £4m.

Work on the project is set to start in early 2024.

More at: https://t.co/sW2HaJICuC pic.twitter.com/80OWEe0XfM

— Bristol City Council (@BristolCouncil) September 7, 2023

Alexander replied: “This bridge is reaching the end of its lifetime and you councillors need to get together and decide what you want to do about Western Harbour while you still have the bridge there.

“You could do with some land in order to liberate capital monies to produce whatever design you want here after this current highways layout.

“It’s unacceptable at the moment, it’s not good for pedestrians or cyclists, so it’s time you stopped some of the discussions that have gone on and actually get on with it because we’re about to find out exactly how long it will last.

“I hope the councillors who delayed the previous [Western Harbour plans] won’t continue to delay because that obviously has extended the life of this car-heavy development.”

Avon Bridge takes traffic over the New Cut – photo: Martin Booth

He said the alternative to the renovations would be to close Avon Bridge, on the A3029 Brunel Way which links the west of the city with Ashton Gate and the wider South West.

Alexander said Cumberland Basin’s roads were nearly 60 years old and carried two-and-a-half times the traffic originally anticipated.

“Like many of our city’s key bridges and infrastructure it has faced years of underinvestment and neglect from previous administrations, resulting in key elements deteriorating at a significant and amplified rate,” he said.

“One of our administration’s key aims is to continue to invest in Bristol’s infrastructure and restore the standards to our key transport links.

“Given the scale of the infrastructure here, our next steps will be to engage in a process of actively managed decline, supporting the end-of-life elements of Cumberland Basin and Avon Bridge.”

A report to cabinet said plans for Western Harbour must be established as soon as possible to determine the scale of repairs to Cumberland Basin, “especially if the development proposals include the dismantling of the current complex”.

Adam Postans is a local democracy reporter for Bristol

Main photo: Martin Booth

Read next:

• What could the Cumberland Basin look like in the future?
• Reopening party to be held for Gaol Ferry Bridge
• Repairs to M32 flyover could cost £22m

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