Residents say bridge closures leave them cut off

Residents in Gloucestershire say they have been left cut off after two key bridges over the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal were closed for emergency repairs.

The work on Netheridge Swing Bridge, which carries Secunda Way over the canal in Hempsted, is scheduled to take place over two weeks.

Dave Bucknell, of the Hempsted Residents' Association, said the handling of repairs showed "a lack of competence". The bridge has already had months of temporary traffic lights, which comes on top of the closure of the nearby pedestrian Lower Hempsted Bridge, which has been shut since April.

The county council said the Canal and Rivers Trust was now on site and works were set to be completed by 19 September.

Previously, the county council and the Canal and Rivers Trust, which both own different parts of the site, said they were aware of the impact the closures were having on the local community.

Mr Bucknell said: "It's not an issue of the bridges needing fixing, the issue is a lack of planning to ensure that both bridges are not closed at the same time. That could and should have been fixed.

"We are talking about schoolchildren, with both bridges now shut, taking an hour-and-a-half or two hours to get to school, where it took them half an hour before."

Mr Bucknell said the group had been pressing for action for years. "Over three-and-a-half years we've been writing to the council, the MP, and the local county councillor have all been written to, and so far nothing but words have come back."

Parents say the disruption is hitting the most vulnerable. Local resident Sue Steggles-Cole said her daughter, who has autism and ADHD, is struggling to get to Cirencester College.

"She now has to be dropped every day into town and it's taking almost two-and-a-half hours each way to get to school," she said. "My worry is that she is not going to be able to stay at college because it's just too much for her."

She added: "Not only are these two bridges closed, the buses have also stopped running.

"It's fine potentially for those [who] can walk that distance, but for my daughter, for some of the elderly residents, they just can't make it to the new bus stop any more.

"So it feels very poorly planned."

Long-time resident Jen Caple said the situation was made worse by dual ownership: "The council owns the surface, and the Canal and River Trust owns the structure. So it needed a lot of communication and sorting."

For Ian Giles, of Netheridge Close, the biggest fear is emergency access. "There is no way that police, fire or ambulance can get to Netheridge Close or to Hempsted Village without going all the way down Bristol Road, across St Ann's Bridge and back.

"It makes no sense."

The county council has previously said the bridge was closed after a "safety inspection determined that the structure was no longer safe to enable access for pedestrians to use".

It said alternative pedestrian access arrangements could be made using the local bus network.

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