Grantham’s relief road won’t open this year due to bridge redesign costing up to £20 million
Council bosses have confirmed that a multi-million pound road project in Grantham will not open until next year due to a critical bridge needing to be redesigned.
Lincolnshire County Council executive member for highways, Richard Davies (Con), said today (Friday, February 7) that the bridge, part of the Grantham Southern Relief Road, would require a redesign to prevent safety issues caused by wind-induced vibrations.
The redesign will add £10 to 20million to the project, taking the total cost to between £158million and £168million. However, the council says it will be looking to recoup the additional costs.
It will also delay the opening of the road by up to 12 months until next year - it had been supposed to open later this year.
The bridge deck will be pushed across the railway and river, requiring careful coordination.
Traditional bridge construction methods were not feasible due to the need to minimise railway line closures.
The council said it had hired “top international engineering companies and experienced contractors to handle the project” and that all design work had “undergone a mandatory additional layer of independent checking”.
However, during final preparations for the bridge installation, experts identified a potential safety issue with the bridge design relating to specific wind conditions, leading to the redesign.
They said the design flaw was not related to the overall safety of the bridge but rather to the specific challenges of the construction method and the need to ensure the stability and control of the bridge deck during the critical pushing phase.
The council would not name any company it holds responsible for the design flaw at this time due to the potential for legal proceedings to determine whether any fault occurred. The council is currently gathering evidence and legal feedback to support its case against those it believes may be responsible for the design flaw.
Coun Davies said he was “annoyed” and “disappointed” by the latest news but added that the fact the road was nearly complete was positive.
“Safety comes first, so the work was halted so our designers and contractors could address the problem.
“We’ve done everything you could reasonably expect us to do as clients for the scheme, but we feel we’ve been let down.
“This is a more than £100million road scheme to move the A52 out of Grantham.
“Since time immemorial, the A52 has generated huge amounts of traffic, which is great for going east and west, connecting places like Nottingham to Boston and further on to Skegness, but it is very busy.
“The reason I became a councillor was to build this road because we need it desperately. The town is constrained and clogged up.”
He said the bridge was the “last piece of the puzzle”.
“One thing I can categorically state is that this wasn't a mistake made by the county council,” he said.
“We are embarking upon legal proceedings with those responsible, and we will be getting that money back. What we can't get back is the time, and that's my big frustration.
“We will get back the money. I'm confident. We've got some experts from a legal perspective—a very experienced legal team—working on this, so we're very confident we'll get the money back.
“I am very annoyed. I'm very disappointed. The reason I'm stood here is that I wanted to build this road, and I am pleased that we have built as much of it as we have, but I started considerably less grey and less tired and beaten up than I am now.
“What I am pleased about is that we now have some certainty over the final date for completion,” he added.
The Grantham Southern Relief Road is a major attempt to move the A52 out of Grantham, addressing traffic congestion and air quality issues.
When completed, the bridge will be over 290m long and 16m wide. Each beam weighs up to 80 tonnes, and the entire structure will weigh 2,600 tonnes once it is pushed into place.
The council is confident in completing the project despite the delays and additional costs.
It said this was its priority and that any legal action to recoup costs would take place once the project was completed.
The bridge push, once it begins, will take several months due to the need to cross the rail line during overnight periods when trains have stopped running.
The rest of the structure will then be built on the east side of the site, including new steel beams being put into place.