Engineers Waiting For Rains To Stop As Tram Bridge in Preston Awaits Demolition

Engineers working on the demolition of a 220-year-old tram bridge are hoping to continue operations in the river until early November, weather permitting.

The tram bridge in Preston, which connects Avenham Park to Penwortham in South Ribble, was closed in February 2019 due to concerns about its potential collapse.

While the structure itself was dismantled in two weeks last month, efforts to remove the remaining rubble from the riverbanks are ongoing as preparations for a new bridge continue.

Antony Mulligan from Eric Wright Civil Engineering, the firm leading the demolition and construction work, is cautiously optimistic that the replacement bridge will be completed by December 2025.

Engineers plan to install the first of two in-river piers before they must vacate the river channel for the winter. Work in the water will be halted first due to weather conditions and then to comply with regulations designed to protect the salmon in the Ribble River until June next year.

Although work in the river will pause, the site will remain active with the installation of a land pier on the southern bank of the Ribble. When work resumes, the focus will shift to completing the second pier in the river.

 

Additional work will also be done on a large compound on the South Ribble side, where a crane will be positioned to install the new bridge.

This compound will cover an area approximately the size of two football pitches, with this part of the project scheduled for autumn or winter of the following year.

Since the project began in May, an extra £1.6 million has been added to the original £6.6 million budget. This additional funding has been reallocated from a previously planned project for new football facilities at Preston’s Ashton Park, which has since been cancelled.

The original tram bridge was used to carry packhorse trams between the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Walton Summit and the Lancaster Canal in Preston.

The bridge’s abutments, or supports, which date back to its construction in 1804, will be preserved and refurbished to maintain a historical link to the site.

Chris Wilding, Lancashire County Council’s bridges and structures design manager, stated, “We’re going to refurbish them and re-use them. They’re a great historical feature that we wouldn’t want to disappear or be affected.”