Transport Insights

Hammersmith and Fulham council has accepted that it cannot fund a £300m full restoration – or replacement – of Hammersmith Bridge, but will instead seek funding amounting to approximately a quarter of the value of the government’s non-existent “Structures Fund” for a partial fix.

A report to the council’s cabinet says:

The Hammersmith Bridge restoration works are extensive. They essentially require a brand-new bridge to be built as all of the Grade II listed heritage structure needs to be replaced or strengthened or restored. The cost of a full restoration of Hammersmith Bridge to allow its use for motor vehicles is now estimated to be £300m.

…

Following discussions with the DfT, it is recommended that the Council submits a bid for a phased repair focused on the most critical life-expired elements of the structure, with the immediate aim of keeping the bridge open and safeguarding access for pedestrians, cyclists and river traffic. The DfT has confirmed its preference for this phased repair bid to the Structures Fund. There is no financial option available that would allow its full restoration.

In three separate places, the report gives the value of the Structures Fund as “£1bn”. This is inaccurate: as I have written extensively, the fund does not have a fixed amount and is to get an unstated (and possibly undecided) share of the £1bn with local authority road upgrades.

This matters when:

It is proposed that a Structures Fund bid be submitted for Hammersmith Bridge, and officers are working with consultants and specialist contractors to develop a programme of works with a high-level budget estimate of £128m, including the pedestal casings and optimism bias.

On the basis that structures might get half the £1bn, which would see the council asking for around a quarter of the fund, or just over a fifth if it puts in 10% “match” funding of £12.8m.

And then there’s the age-old problem of councils spending a fortune chasing a limited pot of central government cash:

Cabinet is asked to approve submission of a bid to the Structures Fund, which will require an estimated £200,000 of unbudgeted expenditure to prepare the information needed due to the required input from specialist bridge and project management consultants.

Another financial headache from the council is that it was previously relying on the introduction of a user charge to fund its share of repairs, but not returning the bridge to motor vehicle use will stymie this.

The report cites an agreement for a one-third, one-third, one-third split between the council, the Department for Transport, and Transport for London (TfL) over the costs. Even before the new works, it is forecasting spending on the bridge to hit £58m, and says it is owed nearly £23m, mainly from TfL.

But the BBC reports:

The transport body maintains that it only agreed to provide a maximum contribution of £2.93m towards the stabilisation works with no further funding to cover cost overruns incurred by the council.

Meanwhile, TfL has its own problems funding bridge repairs, with an 18-tonne weight restriction on Vauxhall Bridge coming into force today and no way of paying the costs of the necessary repairs, let alone a full refurbishment.