{"id":56895,"date":"2022-07-06T17:35:36","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=56895"},"modified":"2022-07-07T11:12:04","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T10:12:04","slug":"emergency-closure-of-bridge-at-martinhoe-in-north-devon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/emergency-closure-of-bridge-at-martinhoe-in-north-devon\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergency closure of bridge at Martinhoe in North Devon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An emergency road closure is in force at Martinhoe Bridge in North Devon.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bridge, located near the Hunters Inn on Exmoor, was built in 1953. Our routine inspections this week have found serious defects with the structure and it has had to be completely closed this afternoon for safety reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerns have been raised over the internal steel tensioning system of the bridge, which is integral to the structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are urgently exploring the possibility of locating a temporary bridge which would allow the road to be re-opened. At this stage it is unknown how long the road will need to be closed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Councillor Stuart Hughes, Cabinet Member for Highway Management, said:<\/p><\/div>\r\n \t\t

\u201cWe have no choice but to close this bridge as it’s not currently safe for the public to use. The issue with the bridge is serious enough that our bridge engineering team is concerned that the structure could collapse without warning. The good news is that our inspectors have identified the issue before it became more serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\t<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\t
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\r\n Councillor Stuart Hughes, Cabinet Member for Highway Management<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n <\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\n\n
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Councillor Andrea Davis, County Councillor for Combe Martin Rural, said:<\/p><\/div>\r\n \t\t

\u201cWe apologise for any inconvenience but it\u2019s essential that this bridge is closed in order to keep people safe. The findings of the recent survey were very unexpected but our teams have acted swiftly in the light of those safety concerns with the structure. Hopefully a temporary bridge can be found and installed as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\t<\/blockquote>\r\n

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\r\n\t\t\"Councillor\r\n
\r\n Councillor Andrea Davis, Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n <\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\n\n\n

Concrete barriers are being placed at either end of the bridge and a signed diversion will be in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[986,24],"tags":[366,23,33,1315,1012],"class_list":["post-56895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roads-and-transport","category-dcc-homepage","tag-bridge","tag-cllr-andrea-davis","tag-cllr-stuart-hughes","tag-martinhoe","tag-north-devon-2"],"acf":[],"featured_image":false,"category_priority":986,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2028-04-19 16:00:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56895"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56911,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56895\/revisions\/56911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}