Warrington to get new £70m bridge

A new £70 million high level bridge spanning the Mersey at Warrington was today given the go-ahead by the Government.
The bridge will link Chester Road with Liverpool Road, near to the David Lloyd Centre and open up large areas of land in the Arpley Meadows area.
Warrington South MP David Mowat (pictured) who has campaigned for the bridge, broke the news today after being told the good news by Universities, Science and Cities Minister Greg Clark.
Funding has been alloccated and the bridge should be completed by 2019-20.
It will be a much larger and more expensive crossing than the smaller bridge planned to link Chester Road and Slutchers Lane which is due to start next year.
But both bridges will divert traffic away from the notorious Bridge Foot bottleneck.
Mr Mowat said: “This is excellent news for Warrington. In addition to relieving pressure on Bridge Foot it will open up large areas of land for development.
“This is a a real shot in the arm for the local economy. Jobs are being created here, but our creaking road network is preventing th town from reaching its full potential.
“When I first started banging on about a new bridge, people told me ‘forget about it, they always talk about it but never build it.’
” This time, things are different, there is now real momentum behind the campaign and I’m determined to see it through to completion.”
Greg Clark – who recently visited Warrington to see the situation for himself – said: “Warrington is a fast-growing town and it will grow faster with better roads and less congestion.
“I am delighted that the government has been able to announce that we expect to see two new bridges built in the south of the town over the next few years.”
The money is being made available as part of the Local Growth funding package for Cheshire a nd Warrington.
Nick Bent, Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for Warrington South, said there had always been strong cross-party support for the project.
“The borough council has made the running on this – and the new crossing will not open until 2021 at the earliest.
“The road tolls on the new and existing Mersey bridges at Runcorn are due to kick in during 2017 – a massive new expense for Warrington drivers and yet more congestion for Warrington roads unless Ministers do a U-turn and scrap the tolls for people in Warrington, as they have for drivers in Halton.
“Labour has proudly led the campaign to deliver a new bridge over the ship canal and I’m pleased we can now proceed but Coalition Ministers must also listen to Warrington drivers and scrap the road tolls on the Mersey bridges at Runcorn or traffic chaos here will go from bad to worse.”