Residents are reminded that work to refurbish 2 footbridges over the railway line between Lake and Shanklin gets underway next week.
The footbridges at Skew Bridge and Alresford Road are both being refurbished to ensure they are at the standards required by the Highways PFI contract.
Skew Bridge is being taken down in sections and stripped back and repainted off-site before being re-assembled and brought back into use. The deck plates – the footway surface – will be replaced as part of the work.
Because there is more available space at its location, the work to Alresford Bridge is being done with the structure in situ. Again, the bridge will be stripped back, repainted and any necessary repairs to the steel structure and concrete deck undertaken.
To allow the removal of Skew Bridge, there will be a road closure on the main Shanklin to Lake road in place between 09:00 and 17:00 on Wednesday (13th January). There will be a further day closure around 5 weeks later when the structure is re-assembled on site.
Work on Alresford footbridge will last up to 8 weeks. As the work is being done while the bridge is in situ, no road closure is necessary. However, a minibus will be provided at the beginning and end of the school day to serve Gatten and Lake Primary. Because of the current lockdown, the impact of this footbridge work will naturally be reduced and the provision of this service will be kept under review in consultation with the school.
At Skew, pedestrians will be able to cross the railway line via the level crossing during the road closure (Jan 13) and afterwards via temporary arrangements that will see a lane closure and traffic signals in place.
The work to both bridges has been timed to coincide with improvement work being carried out by Island Line during which trains were not running.
Jason Boulter, Island Roads project manager, said:
“We have taken steps to maintain pedestrian access as far as possible so hopefully disruption will be minimal.
“We would like to thank the local community, particularly Gatten and Lake Primary, for their co-operation so far and we hope that any short-term inconvenience will be offset by the long term benefits the refurbishment of these two busy footbridges will bring.”
Why do a lane closure and temporary lights? Why not simply route pedestrians along the cliff path and level crossing for 5 weeks?
A few lights on the cliff path would make this more than feasible.
Just to let you know that if our light rail proposal had been accepted Alresford Road would have become a light rail stop and not requiring the footbridge because the ability for the public to access the platform and to cross the line at track level. This would have automtically removed one of the problems of a heavy rail line.
Maybe, but that bird has flown. Time to move on.
What a pathetic stupid way of doing skew bridge closing a lane for pedestrians & having to control 3 way traffic would it just not be easier to divert pedestrians across the little crossing just before the bridge & around that way traffic is going to be bad even with the lockdown. Another brilliant Scheme by Bodge-it & Sod-it opps i mean Island Roads