Tadcaster Bridge Collapses

[Mr Whippy]

velocemitch said:

Mr Whippy said:

velocemitch said:

Mr Whippy said:

£3 million.

Sounds completely reasonable. I bet the breakdown would be scary. £100,000 tops on actual labour and materials for the person doing the job proper?


As per A64 junctions, surely they should be top priority now. Disasters should be an excuse to cut red tape and stop land campers and planning idiocy and just get them built for the benefit of the many, which is exactly what Tad needs right now!

Reasonable or unreasonable?
Know much about this sort of thing do you?

It sounds like you do, so break it down for me if you'd like.

How much is actual materials and labour applying those materials?


I'm not even sure what the quote covers so far, but given I've heard they want to recover original stone from the river bed, £1,000,000 of that budget is probably having teams sifting through thousands of tons of silt for a hundred yards down river looking for cap stones and stuff.


Basically, it all sounds lovely but there are times when we hang on to the past too much... especially when it's costing progress today. Just smash it down and build a new one already!


This is just like Kex Gill on the A59. They've spent millions there over the years and now it's just beyond a joke. Build a new better road around to the North and have done! In the meantime it's costing us money and economic prosperity in these areas while 'planning' types waft around their stupid ideas.

Not sure what relevance the cost of material versus labour is. It's the same with anything you buy how much cost of the average car is the raw materials and how much is other things?. At least with a Car you know what you are building and you repeat it thousands of times. When you build (or repair) a Bridge like this it's a one off, they won't build another quite like it ever again. The span will be different, the supporting structures different, the height above the supports different, the angle of the approach ramps different.

That figure of 3 million, either was already worked out long before this happened or it just somebodies best guess. The actual figure might be less it might be more, I doubt anybody knows that just yet because they don't know what they are dealing with. How much of the remaining Bridge is retainable, how much demolition is required, how badly damaged are the services, what are the medium term costs of diverting them. The cost of the temporary footbridge has to be considered. Talk of providing a permanent footbridge may mean they are having to consider that cost. There wouldn't be much change out of Three Million just for a new Footbridge, depending on how attractive they wanted it.

I suppose while there is money to pay people then they'll make sure it's all spent.

It just seems amazing that in a time when primary infrastructure is knacked and communities like this are split in two that it's taking months to even get to a point to even start doing some work, on just a temporary foot bridge!

Were this 1950s Britain it'd have all been done by now, probably for a few hundred thousand squid in todays money.

Progress eh!

[velocemitch]

Yes we have some common ground with that , nothing happens quickly in this game. The vast majority of the time and a good chunk of the money is wasted by the lawyers, planners, politicians etc before anything can actually happen.

[coppice]

One of the problems with bridges like Tadcaster is that English Heritage classifies them as them as historically important structures . I don't have a problem with that as I don't want the aesthetic qualities of 18C structures ruined by a cheap and cheerful bodge job . But I know from experience that EH can be a tad obstructive when it comes to making quick progress , which is paramount here .I hope some political leverage is applied to expedite progress.

So far as planners are concerned (and no, I am not one ) it is always amusing to see the usual sniping at planners and the planning process- except,of course, when next door proposes some new development,when suddenly everybody becomes terribly keen on a rigid development control regime .....

[hidetheelephants]

Given the whole thing is likely to have to be near enough dismantled anyway, widening it to add pavements/widen the road should not be much more difficult than just a straight reconstruction. Similar things have been done to a few old stone bridges.

[Mr Whippy]

coppice said:

One of the problems with bridges like Tadcaster is that English Heritage classifies them as them as historically important structures . I don't have a problem with that as I don't want the aesthetic qualities of 18C structures ruined by a cheap and cheerful bodge job . But I know from experience that EH can be a tad obstructive when it comes to making quick progress , which is paramount here .I hope some political leverage is applied to expedite progress.

So far as planners are concerned (and no, I am not one ) it is always amusing to see the usual sniping at planners and the planning process- except,of course, when next door proposes some new development,when suddenly everybody becomes terribly keen on a rigid development control regime .....

The problem is planners are far too busy worrying about small things and ignoring big things.

As time has passed and they have had no big things to worry about, they just focus on smaller details of things like roof pitches on peoples extensions, while things like building on flood plains or failed infrastructure seem to go ignored.

The beurocratic bloat can't continue like this. Imagine the UK in a real crisis, the country would grind to a halt. Pretty lame when the *actual* problem is almost irrelevantly small.


Yes the bridge is old and nice, but maybe this is time to let it go and do something new?

[Zad]

Unfortunately the words new and nice rarely go together. They are invariably an unremarkable ultra low budget unmaintained grey (and inside 2 years dirty) and identical to any number of municipal bridges.

[Mr Whippy]

I don't doubt that we can make something crap if we set our minds to it.

I was thinking more along the lines of spend £3,000,000 and make something amazing and new and better than the old one in every way except 'heritage'

The old one has had it's time. Why not do something new and set a legacy for the next few hundred years?



It's in danger of going the way of Kex Gill on the A59. Fix it again and again and again, at huge cost, when a 'new' bypass to the North would solve all the issues, be faster, safer, lower cost to maintain etc, leaving Kex Gill as a nice scenic route for cyclists and stuff.

[gemini]

No way will the feudal landlord allow it to come out of the past!

[Wingo]

I'd read that the long term aim was a new road on a different route at Kex Gill

http://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/news/local/ke...

Perhaps the authorities have accepted that throwing yet more tax payers cash at the problem is akin to filling a bottomless pit with twenties.

Wingo

[velocemitch]

I saw an official communication from the NYC talking about this proposed new diversion to the North too. I've not seen any maps of the proposed route, but knowing the topography around there it will be no easy task.

[Mr Whippy]

velocemitch said:

I saw an official communication from the NYC talking about this proposed new diversion to the North too. I've not seen any maps of the proposed route, but knowing the topography around there it will be no easy task.

My gran lives nearby and I think they've been saying about this 'by-pass to the north' for decades... but the idea is to kinda follow the natural line from the new bridge at the bottom of Blubberhouses and then veer off to the right hand side of the valley there, and follow almost a straight line to the back of the quarry, and then carry on there and join up at the bend before the long straight leading to the long crawler hill bit.

Thus an almost straight line (just up and down) from Blubberhouses to that bend right past Kex Gill.


It was probably another great idea back in the 80s when they upgraded the A59 between Kex Gill and Bolton Abbey, but it never got done for whatever reason.


I'm amazed how the road networks around Yorkshire are going so bad really. Tadcaster was already stupid with the A64 links being wrong, and now there is no bridge there at all... and now the A59 is closed for a big chunk so all that traffic can now travel down along Otley by-pass, Ilkley by-pass, and then around Addingham to Skipton. Oh yeah, they forgot to finish those by-passes too

We can't even keep a main road open anymore!