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Repairs to Maidenhead Bridge
For no little time many of us had been concerned at the state of disrepair of our bridge and often enough wondered whether the obvious damage was the result of allowing 44-ton lorries use a bridge initially designed for carrying nothing much heavier than a stagecoach. The decision was eventually taken to repair the bridge. The reasons given were that the stonework was in poor condition due to weathering. A load assessment was also carried out to determine whether the bridge could take heavy vehicles and it showed that it fell below the 40-ton strength in certain areas. This assessment makes one wonder whether the bridge should have a weight limit imposed. The engineers of a long-gone era built well it seems. In addition it was decided that the deck of the bridge required waterproofing to stop water seeping through the surface of the deck into the stonework of the arches causing future weathering problems. The intent was to resurface the deck and repave the two footways, using York stone paving.
The cost was estimated to be just over £1 million. The bridge is on the boundary between the districts of the Royal Borough and Bucks County Council. Negotiations took place between the two parties and an agreement made that Bucks would fund 50% of the total costs and that Bucks contractors Ringway/Jacobs would carry out the resurfacing works, and RBWM’s contractors BBIS would carry out the stonework. The Environment Agency gave permission for RBWM to work on the river (see photo) but apparently, work on navigation channels could only be carried out between September and April and also for health and safety reasons the river flow had to be less than 100 cubic metres a second. Work was started in September 2009 but due to severe weather conditions it was stopped in December as it became too dangerous and then resumed in March 2010. The entire scheme was completed at the end of June this year and came in under budget. So our lovely old bridge is safe and looking good again.
Fred Russell and Eva Lipman