Lowestoft Gull Wing parts arrive from Belgium

The giant crane unloading the Gull Wing bridge sections from the barge

The latest sections of a £145m bridge that will provide a town with a long-awaited third water crossing have arrived.

They were delivered to the construction site for the Gull Wing bridge in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on Sunday.

The new sections, which arrived on a barge from Belgium, will form part of the southern end of the bridge.

The project is due to be completed by December.

Simon Bretherton, Suffolk County Council project director, said: "The arrival of these next sections will see the structure take shape for the first time on both sides of Lake Lothing.

"This is another major step forward and we continue to make good progress on building what will be an iconic structure providing a new era for jobs, businesses and connectivity for the town of Lowestoft and the wider area."

The Gull Wing bridge will span Lake Lothing - the waterway that divides south and north Lowestoft

The council said one of the biggest cranes of its kind in the world was set up for the arrival of the new steel sections, one of which is 41m (135ft) long and the other 35m (115ft).

They weigh a combined total of 318 tonnes.

One of the sections will be offloaded first and placed on a temporary base, the council said. The other will then be offloaded directly into position.

A barge will return next month with two more pieces for the southern approach viaduct.

Last month, sections for the northern approach viaduct arrived in the town.

Crowds and photographers lined the quayside as the barge, with a tugboat at either end, inched past Lowestoft's Bascule Bridge and into Lake Lothing, transporting the sections that weighed a combined 400 tonnes.

Demands for a third crossing had been repeatedly made for decades, as the town's Bascule Bridge struggled to cope with rising road traffic levels

The new bridge will provide a third waterway crossing, in addition to the existing Bascule Bridge at the harbour end and the Mutford Bridge at the Oulton Broad end

The plans for the bridge over Lake Lothing were first approved by the county council in 2015.

The first steel section of the bridge, weighing 380 tonnes and delivered from Belgium, was installed in October.

The project has been part-funded by the Department for Transport.