National Highways has blamed the wrong kind of traffic as it insists that the sixty-year-old Severn Bridge is safe, while bringing in some fairly drastic measures just to allow HGVs to use it.
Goods vehicles weighing over 7.5 tonnes are currently not allowed on the bridge – now redesignated the M48 – but are diverted onto the M4 Prince of Wales bridge.
The problem is the continued corrosion of the cables that hold up the bridge decks, first discovered in 2006, which led to vehicles above 7.5 tonnes being banned from the outside lane in order stop having two lanes of heavy vehicles stuck on the bridge if an incident occurred.
Follow-up monitoring, which I witnessed in late 2020, found the problem had got quite a lot worse, leading to an outright ban on HGVs.
National Highways has now announced its preferred solution (of two) for the medium term, while it explores longer-term options.
Transport Insights 