An 18th century listed bridge looks set to be dismantled and rebuilt for the demands of the 21st century, despite fears it could aggravate road safety issues.
North Yorkshire County Council’s planning committee approved the authority’s own proposal to widen Tanton Bridge, near Stokesley after hearing it could not cope with traffic using it as a rat-run to the A19 and by drivers trying to avoid the Marton Crawl.
Councillors were told it remained unclear whether the £500,000 scheme, to also include construction of new abutments and arch wing, spandrel wall, wingwalls and parapet, would lead to the structure losing its listed status.
Council officers said the bridge suffered frequent accident damage due to increased traffic and only allowed one-way traffic flow at a time.
Ahead of the meeting Historic England objected to the plan saying it would cause “substantial harm to the significance” of the bridge and there appeared to be more practicable alternatives to help reduce accident damage.
Richard Agar, who has lived in a property beside the bridge for 44 years, said there had been no vehicle to vehicle accident on the structure during that time, but there had been many nearby on the B1365.
He said the narrow bridge created a natural traffic calming measure, while Councillor David Hugill also questioned whether safety issues had been thoroughly examined.
He said: “Is it going to be a big problem to the community in the fact that we get more accidents? This bridge needs to be wider, but this is going to increase traffic on that road, which has double white lines for much of it, its quite narrow and has got bends in it.”
Stokesley councillor Bryn Griffiths said he supported the bridge changes, but was concerned it could lead to a displacement of accidents away from the bridge area.
He said: “This bridge is a bottleneck, with an associated accident record. Things can only get worse if Stokesley continues to grow as planned.”
Councillor David Blades said the council had 1,630 bridges to look after and could not ignore issues on structures that were being regularly damaged.
He said: “We have a respect for the listed buildings, but at the end of the day we have got to look at public safety.”
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