Baroness Pidgeon
Main Page: Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Pidgeon's debates with the Department for Transport
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
It is a matter for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and indeed for the neighbouring borough on the south side, of which I declare that I am a resident, to decide what they want to do with the bridge. The stabilisation work has stopped it from literally collapsing, but the capacity of the bridge to take traffic as well as pedestrians and cyclists will cost a lot more money, and the boroughs will have to work with Transport for London to decide how the bridge is going to be used. The other really important feature of the bridge is that at least once a year it is absolutely full of pedestrians. Therefore, a job that does not allow it to bear the weight of pedestrians for the boat race and other things will not be very satisfactory. However, it is for the boroughs to decide how to deal with that.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this is a sorry saga. The impact of the closure is significant for south-west London, particularly the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. When will a full economic and environmental evaluation be carried out on the effect of the bridge’s closure for this whole area?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
As I say, it is primarily for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has the good fortune—or bad luck—to own this structure, and for the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south side to decide between them what they want to do with this bridge in the future, bearing in mind the engineering evaluation about what the structure is capable of doing. It was designed and built for horse-drawn traffic; it has never been particularly strong. Therefore, the boroughs need to work with Transport for London to work out to what use it might be put. I agree that there needs to be an economic evaluation of the effects of whatever happens permanently, but first they need to work out what the bridge is capable of doing after it has been stabilised.