A military-style crossing should be built over the Thames in west London to allow Hammersmith Bridge to be repaired, say the local Conservatives.
They believe it could be put up in months, slightly north of the existing bridge, and enabling engineers more leeway to fix it while not being used by cyclists or pedestrians.
Another possibility, they say, is that the 139-year-old bridge, which has been closed to motor vehicles since April 2019 when cracks appeared in its pedestals, could be dismantled and then repaired on dry land.
The plan for the second, temporary bridge, which would have a toll, is expected to cost between £10 million and £20 million but it could speed up work on the existing Thames crossing in this part of the capital.
Fixing Hammersmith Bridge is expected to cost at least £300 million and take at least five years.
The military-style bridge would have to be sufficiently strong to carry buses under the Tory proposal.
It would require the temporary use of a small section of the playing fields of St Paul’s School.
Re-opening Hammersmith Bridge to traffic is set to become a key issue at the May local elections, with Labour facing heavy losses in the capital.
Setting out a key plank of his party’s election platform, Councillor Jose Afonso, Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Opposition Leader, said: “The costs for reopening Hammersmith Bridge have soared, while the Department for Transport, TfL and Hammersmith and Fulham Council are locked in squabbles over who pays.
“Given the national fiscal situation we should admit the current solution is dead in the water and look at an alternative.
“It is unacceptable that over the timeframe that Notre Dame burnt down and was rebuilt, we still can’t get an ambulance to cross the Thames at Hammersmith.”
Opposition Deputy Leader Cllr Adrian Pascu-Tulbure added: “A military-style bridge built immediately upstream of the existing bridge could have been operational in months and saved tens of millions while the old bridge was comprehensively repaired.”
The Tories say that if they win the council in May, they will launch a fair and open competition for engineering firms to propose schemes to get a bridge crossing open to traffic.
As the local elections loom, Putney Labour MP Fleur Anderson is seeking to step up pressure for Hammersmith Bridge to be re-opened to traffic, with a rally this weekend to get local people to voice their views on the delay in repairing it.
She raised the issue in Parliament earlier this month, stressing: “Commuter services are extensively disrupted in Putney by the six-year closure of Hammersmith Bridge.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, a former Deputy Mayor for Transport in London, replied: “I recognise how disruptive the closure of Hammersmith bridge has been to people.”
She added that the Hammersmith Bridge taskforce would meet “in the near future” to discuss how to push ahead with plans to fully re-open it.
Hopes rose recently that finance to fix the bridge could be found from a new £1 billion infrastructure fund earmarked to repair bridges and crossovers.
Hammersmith & Fulham Council owns the bridge, and has met most of the cost of stabilising it, but funding for the required major reconstruction is expected to be needed from the Department for Transport and City Hall as well.
Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has urged the Government to step in to get the bridge fixed.
