Thérèse and Ipswich MP, Tom Hunt met National Highways this morning to discuss the recent chaos caused by the closure of the Orwell Bridge. They both wanted to understand more about how the recent situation was allowed to unfold and to understand more about what steps are being taken to ensure it never happens again.
They were both told that this was the first time there had ever been a partial closure of the bridge linked to inspection/maintenance. All other closures historically have been to do with weather and car accidents. This was the first time the specialist vehicle (platform crane) carrying out the inspection had suffered a “catastrophic failure”. There are only four of these vehicles in the country.
Thérèse and Tom understand that breakdowns happen from time to time but the most concerning thing has been the lack of resilience that led to the eastward-bound section of the bridge being closed for well over 12 hours. The contractor National Highways use for these vehicles is called “WEMO-tech”. Therese and Tom believe that their response to the breakdown of the vehicle was unacceptable. The failure happened at approximately midnight on 1st December. However, it wasn’t until 9am that there was an engineer on the scene. There was a further wait until 6pm for an engineer with adequate specialist knowledge to arrive at the scene.
The engineer was then able to fix the issue and at 7 30pm the bridge was fully open. All in all therefore the eastward section of the bridge was closed for 17 and a half hours, which was totally unacceptable. However unusual it was for there to be a total breakdown of the vehicle in question and however specialist it was, this response time is not ok.
They also asked why one lane wasn't allowed to be open. National Highways said it would have been safe for regular vehicles but not lorries. National Highways made a decision in conjunction with Suffolk Police that it wouldn’t be possible to separate lorries from regular vehicles.
National Highways told the MPs that they are confident there will never be another partial closure of the bridge linked to maintenance again. From now on they have said WEMO-tech will have to ensure specialist engineers are actually on site when the inspections on the bridge take place. Meaning the response time if there are any issues will be vastly improved.
Thérèse said: “While an unfortunate series of circumstances led to the unacceptably long response, it was a useful meeting with Ipswich MP Tom Hunt and senior managers from National Highways and the Department for Transport. While there are further questions to be taken up on traffic diversion routes and also with Suffolk Police, it is good that lessons have already been learned for the future on resilience. I particularly welcome that the machine engineer will be on-site in case of any further breakdown."
