New bridge to arrive on Sunday

The existing Church Road bridge deck has been demolished and the abutments have been prepared ready to receive the new bridge deck which will be craned into position.

The new bridge deck is made from Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP) which has been selected because of its light weight and high performance. These advantages have enabled the new bridge deck to be constructed off-site in factory conditions with final assembly at the National Composites Centre at Emersons Green. This has cut the time that the road has needed to be closed for the installation.

The new bridge deck will be transported to Church Road with a police escort on Sunday 24th August 2014, between the hours of 4am and 12 noon. It will be coming via the A4174 Avon Ring Road, A432 Badminton Road and Church Road. It will be an extremely wide load, almost 9m wide, therefore in order to travel safely the roads along the route will have to be kept completely clear of all parked vehicles during that time. No waiting cones will be placed along the permitted route and any vehicles contravening these will be subject to enforcement action.

The actual lifting of the bridge is expected to happen at around 2pm.

The road will be reopened to traffic from early September, with a three-way traffic light system in place until November so the bridge's original masonary parapets can be rebuilt, utilities reinstalled and the road surfaced.

Sunday morning update: The new bridge has already arrived and been lowered into place, earlier in the day than expected. You can go back through the photos taken by the time lapse camera at https://m.lobstervision.tv/framptoncotterell#projects.