Newlay Bridge to undergo more flood tests

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Surveys to see whether a 199-year-old West Leeds bridge was damaged during the December 2015 floods are being carried out.

Council engineers will be laser surveying Newlay Bridge to 2.5 mm accuracy from four points at either end of the bridge.

The will tell the engineers if there has been any significant movement or twisting that might have resulted from the Boxing Day floods more than two years ago.

View over the River Aire at Newlay Bridge, Bramley. Photo: Jill Buckley

Local residents have been warned a number of trees will be cut down or back in three of the four access points to give the laser enough of a view to carry out the survey.

Six riverbank trees in Brigg Flatt Wood will be removed completely. Brigg Flatt Wood will be planted with trees to mitigate the loss of these.

Leeds City Council say the bridge will be fully scaffolded and then fully painted in Spring. The bridge is likely to stay open during the work.

Local residents in the Newlay Conservation Society say they have been trying to get work carried out on the bridge for about three years.

Work was carried out in June 2017 to check the bridge foundations for flood scouring.

Surveys also revealed that the bridge weather-proofing needed improving so it was decided to delay repainting and do all the work in 2018. Cost will be more than £20,000.

The Society said on Facebook:

“We hope that the bridge will be repaired in the spring / summer and repainted then, which will need full scaffolding.

“We are pushing for this to go ahead as planned as we want to have a bridge party on it in say June 2019, when the bridge is 200 years old.”

Newlay footbridge connects Bramley to Horsforth at the bottom of Pollard Lane and Newlay Lane.



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