Tag: bridges

• Funding gaps can’t be bridged

  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:

  (more…)

  2026.07.01

• Ministers fail to back “Structures Fund” with actual cash

  Eight months after ministers announced a fund to repair and “futureproof” local authority road structures, the Department for Transport (DfT) is unable to say how much money will be in the fund or how it might operate.

  

  The DfT has only just launched a targeted “stakeholder consultation” for its so-called “Structures Fund” just as the latest closure of a local authority road bridge was announced.

  In June ministers announced £1bn “to enhance and repair run down transport infrastructure and futureproof England’s road network” to be split between the structures fund and local road upgrades under what was called the Major Road Network/Large Local Majors (MRN/LLM) programme.

  But, despite claiming in a press release that it would “set out more detail about how funding will be allocated shortly”, the DfT has yet to finalise the budget for the fund, which means that funding for local authority road upgrades remains uncertain.

  This paralysis explains why the DfT refused last year to tell me how much the MRN/LLM budget was.

  I would argue that as the Structures Fund does not have dedicated funding, it cannot legitimately be called a fund.

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  2026.02.13

• Detail to follow

  The Treasury has now published its press release on a £1 billion Structures Fund that it says “will inject cash into repairing run down bridges, decaying flyovers and worn out tunnels across Britain, and ensure other transport infrastructure is both more resilient to extreme weather events and to the demands of modern transport”.

  

  Most of this £1bn – £590m – will go on the Lower Thames Crossing.

  The cash is part of the forthcoming 10-year infrastructure strategy but the press release said the cash “today” will “address these immediate risks over the next five years”.

  It added:

  “We will set out more detail about how funding will be allocated shortly. This funding is additional to the funding local authorities will receive for highways maintenance, which will be set out in due course.”

  This is an entirely meaningless statement, beyond the “shortly” and “in due course”. It appears to imply that the cash will be allocated to English highway authorities, but how can it be additional to funding that hasn’t been announced yet? It literally is funding for highways maintenance.

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  2025.06.16