Civil engineers BAM Nuttall has started the six-week process of extracting the bridge’s vessel collision protection system. The work is expected to be finished by the end of March.
Work to remove the bridge’s protective piles and booms had been scheduled to start last autumn, but the floating crane which the contractors needed to do the job was delayed on another contact in Sierra Leone.
However, a replacement floating crane – appropriately named the Atlas - arrived at the Gateshead Millennium Bridge this morning (14 February) and work is finally underway.
The grey protective booms were originally installed in 2000 during the construction of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge to ensure it was protected against river vessels accidentally colliding with its superstructure.
However, recent assessments of river traffic suggests that the risk of collision is now so low that removing the VCPS would present little risk.
Councillor John McElroy, Cabinet member for Transport, says: “This will be a popular move.”
“Many visitors have commented over the years that the bollards detract from the elegance of the bridge, but we’ve been committed to retaining them in the interests of river safety.
“Now that we have established that their removal will not now present a major risk to river traffic, we have taken the decision to remove them, and we think many people will be pleased with that decision.”
He added: “The bollards did not feature in the original designs for the bridge but were added during the construction phase. Their removal will mean that the bridge will appear, for the very first time, the way it’s designer originally intended.”
In 2009, Gateshead Council carried out a careful appraisal of the costs of maintaining the VCPS throughout the life of the bridge and concluded that it would cost less to remove it than it would to continue maintaining it.
Removing the VCPS involves dismantling its 14 horizontal fenders together with their flotation units and then extracting 16 piles from their positions deep within the river bed. The remaining holes will be filled with sand.