Residents petition for replacement of destroyed bridge

Llanerch Bridge, which crosses the River Clwyd in Denbighshire, collapsed in January 2021

More than 1,300 residents in a Welsh county have signed a petition requesting the council reconsider building a bridge that was washed away.

In May, councillors in Denbighshire voted to abandon plans to replace Llanerch Bridge on the advice of council officers.

The bridge was destroyed during Storm Christoph in 2021 when the River Clwyd burst its banks.

Council officers said drilling into the riverbed could contaminate a water supply to 85,000 homes, and the authority could be liable for millions of pounds in legal costs if works continued.

But residents have said the missing bridge means those living in Trefnant and Tremeirchion face seven-mile diversions on back roads and country lanes.

The petition follows local councillors campaigning for a temporary structure at the former Llanerch Bridge site, but that has also been dismissed by council officers as risky.

Sue Holyroyd started the petition along with fellow Tremeirchion resident Deborah Albrow.

Ms Holyrod said: "People want their bridge back. It affects a lot of people."

She added that the response from the council [at the end of May] was "unexpected".

"They have to spend more money on petrol. They have to allow more time for travelling. It affects people in lots of ways.

"It is not just people from Tremeirchion. It is people coming into the village, and the other road that we now have to use to go to Trefnant.

"We hope the council will reconsider what the options are, instead of just saying it is not doable," she said.

Ms Holyroyd added that January would be the fifth anniversary of not having a bridge.

The now-abandoned plans for a new bridge, which was estimated to cost between £8m and £10m, would have required engineers to drill deep into sandstone layers, potentially creating fissures that could contaminate the water.

Although £1.5m had been spent on design work, the council said the works could endanger public health.

A spokesman for the council said since the bridge's collapse it had worked closely with the Welsh government to try and find a design solution to replace the bridge without damaging and potentially contaminating a nearby ground water abstraction facility, adding it was "always the desire and intention of the council to replace the bridge".

"However, having followed a robust process and fully assessed the risks and issues from a design and construction perspective, it was not possible to design a foundation that could accommodate the predicted riverbed scour depth without penetrating the bedrock below.

"Therefore, unfortunately after significant consideration, the council's cabinet decided not to proceed with the final design solution for a new highway bridge earlier this year."