DfT Plan to Demolish Disused Bridges and Tunnels

[WesternLancer]

The final chapter in a very sorry tale.

Are we surprised that infrastructure is so expensive in the UK with idiots like this in charge?

Cost of removing Great Musgrave Bridge's concrete infill revealed

The removal of a concrete infill of a bridge cost nearly triple the amount it cost to install.

www.bbc.co.uk

(BBC News item revealing cost of removing concrete from Gt. Musgrave bridge was £352,000, three times the amount it cost to install it)

Thanks for posting this update - good to read it has been done, hope the costs are a warning to others....

 

[JKF]

It won’t really be a warning to others given it’s public money they’re spending!

 

[BrianW]

It won’t really be a warning to others given it’s public money they’re spending!

Presumably the individual who 'signed off' on the original concreting-in will have had their wrist gently slapped and had a seriously fierce-ish talking to- 'naughty boy'! And of course lessons will be learned.

 

[snowball]

I would have thought it would originally have been signed off by a minister in the DfT.

 

[Mugby]

I would have thought it would originally have been signed off by a minister in the DfT.

It would but the minister would be acting solely on the advice/information fed to him by inept civil servants!

 

[Recessio]

The final chapter in a very sorry tale.

Are we surprised that infrastructure is so expensive in the UK with idiots like this in charge?

Cost of removing Great Musgrave Bridge's concrete infill revealed

The removal of a concrete infill of a bridge cost nearly triple the amount it cost to install.

www.bbc.co.uk

(BBC News item revealing cost of removing concrete from Gt. Musgrave bridge was £352,000, three times the amount it cost to install it)

Heads should roll over this, such a waste of money

 

[WesternLancer]

I would have thought it would originally have been signed off by a minister in the DfT.

Probably not - it's not exactly a big scheme in department expenditure terms, and when planned was clearly not expected to be controversial. I doubt there was ministerial involvement at that level - at least not until the campaign group started their effective campaigning on this.
At best it would have been signed off on a recommendation as mentioned but I can't see ministers having time to consider every bridge strengthening plan (which is surely how it would have been resented) on minor roads across the country.

 

[snowball]

Probably not - it's not exactly a big scheme in department expenditure terms, and when planned was clearly not expected to be controversial. I doubt there was ministerial involvement at that level - at least not until the campaign group started their effective campaigning on this.
At best it would have been signed off on a recommendation as mentioned but I can't see ministers having time to consider every bridge strengthening plan (which is surely how it would have been resented) on minor roads across the country.

I wasn't suggesting ministerial sign-off for every individual bridge but for the overall plan.

 

[WesternLancer]

I wasn't suggesting ministerial sign-off for every individual bridge but for the overall plan.

I doubt even that would go to Ministers, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[zwk500]

I doubt even that would go to Ministers, but maybe I'm wrong.

I suspect it would have had some level of political approval, the most likely minister being the Parliamentary Under-secretary of state for Roads and Local Transport, who's portfolio includes road safety and National Highways (currently Guy Opperman). Although it may not have had much more than a nod through on recommendation.

 

[Mark J]

Where there is a reasonable chance that rail infrastructure could be reopened, or re-purposed for other uses, such as a greenway, then the infrastructure should be left intact.

This also includes Hertiage Railways.

Costs of reopening a railway line are massively increased when Highways England are allowed to get away with this rubbish.

This is clearly a case of Highways England not talking to other parts of the DfT. However, the DfT should be over-ruling much of this.

 

[zwk500]

Where there is a reasonable chance that rail infrastructure could be reopened, or re-purposed for other uses, such as a greenway, then the infrastructure should be left intact.

This also includes Hertiage Railways.

If the only viable use of a line is for a heritage line, it should be offered to them first but I don't see why vast amounts of public money should go towards safeguarding closed lines that are only ever going to be living museums instead of investing in the current network.

Costs of reopening a railway line are massively increased when Highways England are allowed to get away with this rubbish.

This is clearly a case of Highways England not talking to other parts of the DfT. However, the DfT should be over-ruling much of this.

You don't think this is a case of the DfT talking very directly to HE?

 

[Trainbike46]

If the only viable use of a line is for a heritage line, it should be offered to them first but I don't see why vast amounts of public money should go towards safeguarding closed lines that are only ever going to be living museums instead of investing in the current network.

You don't think this is a case of the DfT talking very directly to HE?

In this specific case though, there's 2 important factors your general statement ignores:

1. Highways England didn't apply for the planning permission they required. If they had, none of this mess would have happened. The forced reversal was necessary to ensure that government agencies can't just ignore planning rules.

2. Infilling was way more expensive than the (relatively minor) fixes the bridge required - so they certainly didn't save money to invest in the current network, even if the forced reversal hadn't happened

 

[zwk500]

In this specific case though, there's 2 important factors your general statement ignores:

1. Highways England didn't apply for the planning permission they required. If they had, none of this mess would have happened. The forced reversal was necessary to ensure that government agencies can't just ignore planning rules.

2. Infilling was way more expensive than the (relatively minor) fixes the bridge required - so they certainly didn't save money to invest in the current network, even if the forced reversal hadn't happened

In this specific example I agree with your two arguments completely. The fact that the bridge ended up being assessed as strong enough is also a vital part of the story - it didn't even need fixing in the end, so everybody would have been satisfied with the only cost being the inspections if HE had got it right. And yes, HE should abide by the same rules as everybody else (the system needs reform but that's a different question), and they went for a deliberately expensive solution designed to obstruct. Neither of those actions I have any intention of defending, indeed I condemn them.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that every bridge over a disused trackbed should be obliterated. If the most cost-effective measure is simply to repoint a bridge, then that's the best deal for taxpayers as well as preserving the use of the line for a later date. Win-Win for all concerned. My point was that it is not reasonable to demand the public purse maintain every last bridge, tunnel and viaduct against the second coming of any railway ever built.

 

[Trainbike46]

In this specific example I agree with your two arguments completely. The fact that the bridge ended up being assessed as strong enough is also a vital part of the story - it didn't even need fixing in the end, so everybody would have been satisfied with the only cost being the inspections if HE had got it right. And yes, HE should abide by the same rules as everybody else (the system needs reform but that's a different question), and they went for a deliberately expensive solution designed to obstruct. Neither of those actions I have any intention of defending, indeed I condemn them.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that every bridge over a disused trackbed should be obliterated. If the most cost-effective measure is simply to repoint a bridge, then that's the best deal for taxpayers as well as preserving the use of the line for a later date. Win-Win for all concerned. My point was that it is not reasonable to demand the public purse maintain every last bridge, tunnel and viaduct against the second coming of any railway ever built.

I agree on all counts

 

[Mark J]

In this specific example I agree with your two arguments completely. The fact that the bridge ended up being assessed as strong enough is also a vital part of the story - it didn't even need fixing in the end, so everybody would have been satisfied with the only cost being the inspections if HE had got it right. And yes, HE should abide by the same rules as everybody else (the system needs reform but that's a different question), and they went for a deliberately expensive solution designed to obstruct. Neither of those actions I have any intention of defending, indeed I condemn them.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that every bridge over a disused trackbed should be obliterated. If the most cost-effective measure is simply to repoint a bridge, then that's the best deal for taxpayers as well as preserving the use of the line for a later date. Win-Win for all concerned. My point was that it is not reasonable to demand the public purse maintain every last bridge, tunnel and viaduct against the second coming of any railway ever built.

If there is zero chance of a line ever reopening, then it can make sense to demolish, or infill.

Where there is a chance (however small at the present time), it shouldn't be happening.

As for your last point. 'Them's the breaks' when wholesale closure was carried out, without grasping that disused infrastructure still needed maintenance.

Whilst not every route should have remained. There were some that would have been beneficial, if still in existence today - and contributing towards infrastructure maintenance.

 

[HSTEd]

2. Infilling was way more expensive than the (relatively minor) fixes the bridge required - so they certainly didn't save money to invest in the current network, even if the forced reversal hadn't happened

Infilling eliminates an ongoing maintenance liability that will overwhelm the one time cost of the infilling.
It is unreasonable to expect the public to maintain a bridge until the end of time, especially when there is a negligible chance of the line reopening.

If £350,000 on bridge filling removal (and any remedial repairs required at that time) is enough to destroy the business case for a railway reopening, there was never a case for the railway reopening in the first place.

Of all the routes that I feel don't need a duplicating second route, I think the Settle and Carlisle would be rather high on the list!

 

[zwk500]

If there is zero chance of a line ever reopening, then it can make sense to demolish, or infill.

Where there is a chance (however small at the present time), it shouldn't be happening.

Not if that chance is as a private railway, rather than a public one. If the heritage people want to pay for the upkeep of the bridge, then by all means give it to them for £1. Same with a quarry/mine branch or similar.

As for your last point. 'Them's the breaks' when wholesale closure was carried out, without grasping that disused infrastructure still needed maintenance.

It was fully grasped that the maintenance burden would stay - hence why so many former lines were quickly sold on to road schemes and suchlike so the burden could be reduced.

Whilst not every route should have remained. There were some that would have been beneficial, if still in existence today - and contributing towards infrastructure maintenance.

If lines had been reopened then they'd have also been contributing to the socio-economic wealth of the country and revenue to the railway to offset the infrastructure maintenance costs.

 

[RT4038]

If lines had been reopened then they'd have also been contributing to the socio-economic wealth of the country and revenue to the railway to offset the infrastructure maintenance costs.

May do, but more than likely not. A re-opened line is more likely to be a socio-economic drain, with huge requirements for subsidy (both in the re-opening and subsequent operations) and contribute no revenue to offset infrastructure maintenance costs.

 

[Annetts key]

Infilling eliminates an ongoing maintenance liability that will overwhelm the one time cost of the infilling.
It is unreasonable to expect the public to maintain a bridge until the end of time, especially when there is a negligible chance of the line reopening.

If £350,000 on bridge filling removal (and any remedial repairs required at that time) is enough to destroy the business case for a railway reopening, there was never a case for the railway reopening in the first place.

Of all the routes that I feel don't need a duplicating second route, I think the Settle and Carlisle would be rather high on the list!

But we don't apply the same to roads, lanes and paths do we?

A road, lane, path may only get used by a handful of people/users but we still expect the council / highway authority to maintain them.

And no one has a crystal ball, so it is not always possible to predict what may happen in the future.

One of the big losses with the closure of some lines, was the loss of some parallel alternative routes. Again, on the road network, where an A road becomes a motorway, normally a parallel alternative route is maintained or in some cases, another road is provided for the non-motorway traffic.

Compared to the government budget, the cost of maintaining most bridges where there is a reasonable chance that in the future, said infrastructure may be useful once again is small fry.

May do, but more than likely not. A re-opened line is more likely to be a socio-economic drain, with huge requirements for subsidy (both in the re-opening and subsequent operations) and contribute no revenue to offset infrastructure maintenance costs.

The whole railway network is subsidised... As are plenty of other services and some other infrastructure. That's the whole point of having taxation and government structure that also considers the needs of the people.
If everything was done purely on a commercial basis, our country would be a far less nice place to be.

 

[HSTEd]

But we don't apply the same to roads, lanes and paths do we?

Lanes and paths are regularly left to degrade.
Indeed many country lanes may not see significant maintenance work for many decades.

I believe Northumberland council expects to be able to resurface its minor roads once every few centuries at this point!

And no one has a crystal ball, so it is not always possible to predict what may happen in the future.

Not always, but most of the time it is.
It is extraordinarily unlikely that the Eden Valley railway will ever be worth reopening, with or without this bridge being available for immediate use.

Compared to the government budget, the cost of maintaining most bridges where there is a reasonable chance that in the future, said infrastructure may be useful once again is small fry.

Define "reasonable"
There is probably a much less than a 1 in 100 chance that a railway will ever run beneath the bridge in question again.
It's in the middle of nowhere and within a few miles of another very lightly utilised railway line that essentially parallels it.

 

[snowball]

Lanes and paths are regularly left to degrade.
Indeed many country lanes may not see significant maintenance work for many decades.

You sometimes see statements of the form, "at the present rate of progress it would take X years to resurface all this council's roads." X is usually bigger than 100.

 

[zwk500]

May do, but more than likely not. A re-opened line is more likely to be a socio-economic drain, with huge requirements for subsidy (both in the re-opening and subsequent operations) and contribute no revenue to offset infrastructure maintenance costs.

If they'd have required disproportionate subsidy they wouldn't have reopened.

 

[themiller]

Infilling eliminates an ongoing maintenance liability that will overwhelm the one time cost of the infilling.
It is unreasonable to expect the public to maintain a bridge until the end of time, especially when there is a negligible chance of the line reopening.

If £350,000 on bridge filling removal (and any remedial repairs required at that time) is enough to destroy the business case for a railway reopening, there was never a case for the railway reopening in the first place.

Of all the routes that I feel don't need a duplicating second route, I think the Settle and Carlisle would be rather high on the list!

A couple of £000s per year for inspections and minor repairs wouldn’t come close to a one off payment of infilling for a very long time when you take into account interest on the capital sums involved. Ive never been involved with bridge inspections so I’ve taken yearly as a guess. With current technology, inspections shouldn’t be expensive - an initial 3-D survey and subsequent ones being compared with it to establish any movement - and a quick visual to check on pointing.

 

[IanXC]

I'm fairly sure I recall Highways England appearing at a Select Committee or similar saying that they only had budget to remove/infill a certain number of structures, and that the order they were addressing them was simply based on the order of a review process.

If they had done a little desktop work to identify which structures were extremely unlikely to have future use, the ones no organisation would object to, there'd be plenty of years worth of structures that don't even have pie in the sky reuse possibilities. In the meantime those organisations that would want to take on such a structure would have plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements. Everyone could have won, declining number of structures in the portfolio as white elephants are infilled or demolished, fits within the budget available, time for organisations to get their arrangements together, which eventually will (worst case only marginally) reduce the number of structures in the portfolio. Everyone wins, bad publicity avoided. But no they get the steam roller out....

 

[joebassman]

Whilst not every route should have remained. There were some that would have been beneficial, if still in existence today - and contributing towards infrastructure maintenance.

I guess the question may be how would someone at the time have discerned which lines may have been viable for future reopenings and which lines would never reopen?

How would they have known at the time where future house building trends would develop?

 

[zwk500]

A couple of £000s per year for inspections and minor repairs wouldn’t come close to a one off payment of infilling for a very long time when you take into account interest on the capital sums involved. Ive never been involved with bridge inspections so I’ve taken yearly as a guess. With current technology, inspections shouldn’t be expensive - an initial 3-D survey and subsequent ones being compared with it to establish any movement - and a quick visual to check on pointing.

Sending somebody out with a rather expensive piece of equipment isn't cheap, and neither is the training (university qualification, etc) needed for a qualified engineer to assess the bridge for load-bearing capability. However if the bridge isn't causing any concern then it can absolutely be left alone, as the big costs will be the ones where movement *is* taking place and they're the ones that would be justified for infill.

 

[WesternLancer]

I guess the question may be how would someone at the time have discerned which lines may have been viable for future reopenings and which lines would never reopen?

How would they have known at the time where future house building trends would develop?

I believe there was a govt report commissioned in - I think - the 1970s about the future of closed railway lines - including the value of protecting certain routes ec - sadly I can't recall it's title and thus can't find ref to it on line easily - analysed some of these things. Obv would have been unable to predict all of the economic and population trends, or policy trends, that would mean some routes now would be of a use that would have been hard to predict in the 70s etc

Maybe other contributors recall it?

I don't think its recommendations were even taken forward in a particularly coherent way - perhaps it was commissioned as a way to kick the issue into touch, or the debate had moved on by the time the report was published.

I recall finding it by chance in the library when I was at University - quite some years ago now. Wish I could recall its title as that would make it easy to find. Would have been published as a government paper/report - maybe Dept of Transport or Dept of Environment in those days.

 

[43066]

May do, but more than likely not. A re-opened line is more likely to be a socio-economic drain, with huge requirements for subsidy (both in the re-opening and subsequent operations) and contribute no revenue to offset infrastructure maintenance costs.

Do you have any actual evidence to back up this incredibly sweeping statement (other than your apparent personal dislike of railways, and of public subsidy being used for anything other than roads)?

Reopened lines need to have a good business case to underpin the decision to proceed in the first place, which suggests they won’t be a “socio-economic drain”. And how exactly would a reopened railway contribute “no revenue”, unless it was proposed for it to be free to use?

 

[The exile]

However if the bridge isn't causing any concern then it can absolutely be left alone, as the big costs will be the ones where movement *is* taking place and they're the ones that would be justified for infill.

But not, hopefully, just by bunging a whole load of concrete underneath it.
Meanwhile, how about getting to grips with those that still have an operational railway underneath and are standing in the way of progress? (Wigan Wallgate, for example) Yes - that one’s going to cost a fortune, but it’s not going to cost less by leaving it for now.