Fretherne Canal Bridge, which spans the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, has re-opened a week ahead of schedule.

  Extensive repairs to the bridge and the approach roads were expected to take until next Friday (August 28th) but were completed much quicker than anticipated and the bridge was re-opened to traffic this afternoon.

  Gloucestershire Highways John Roberts said, “We always knew that closing this bridge would cause a great deal of inconvenience to people living and working in the area and we were determined to get the job done as quickly as possible.

  “Fortunately, we had very good weather and that enabled us to have three separate contractors working at the same time, which meant the work could be completed much quicker than we expected.    “We hope the long term benefits will far outweigh the inconvenience experienced this week”.

  The work included re-surfacing the bridge with a new high performance waterproofing/surfacing system, which is expected to last a minimum of 10 years, and resurfacing the approaches.     British Waterways also took advantage of the closure to undertake repairs to the mechanical equipment used to open the bridge.