Another attempt will be made to lift the Vauxhall bridge out of its foundations on Thursday, February 26th following the failure two weeks ago to remove it for repair.

The attempt foundered as the bridge was heavier than first thought and the crane used was unable to lift it from its foundations and swing it around to put inside the scaffolding that has been built alongside to hold it while it is repaired.

Monmouth Rotarian Norman Williams blasted the project as “gross incompetence from the start.

“The structure is prefabricated and modular. Any competent engineer could have calculated the weight,” he told the Beacon.

“What’s the chance of adopting my original assessment of putting marine plywood sheets across the bed of the bridge at a cost of well under £20K? He claims this is still achievable by Easter.

“This would be perfectly acceptable for use by pedestrians,” and he noted that during the recent flooding the Inglis Bridge did not suffer any damage.

According to Cllr Jane Lucas who has been liaising with the contractors, when they tried to lift the bridge the first time, it didn’t want to release, “so they re-checked, put more counter weights on the crane and tried again”, and still no luck.

The same crane will be returning this week in another effort to remove the Grade II listed bridge.

Cllr Lucas said that the engineers had calculated the weight of the bridge using the 1931 handbook but the MOD-owned bridge had been refurbished and strenghtened by the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers in 1988, 1998, and 2007.

Its concrete footings were secured and steel girders were used to strengthen the bridge for use by traffic and it was these concrete footings which caused so much trouble.

The Beacon spoke to an onsite engineer on the first attempt and he confirmed that the concrete was so hard “our jackhammers were just bouncing off it”.

Cllr Lucas added that the engineers have been weighing the bridge using bottlejacks on all four corners and placed weighing scales underneath and then calculating the weight on each corner, then all four at the same time.

“The weight has come in at just over 40 tonnes which is double what they were anticipating. So the good news is that the crane that was in last week will be able to lift the bridge apparently but it will need an awful lot more counterbalance,” she said.

“One of the other great concerns was the fact the bridge is listed and at no point does anybody want to risk damaging the bridge further or for that matter losing it down the river,” she added.

The Inglis Bridge at Monmouth was built by the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (RMRE) in 1931. The regiment was, and is, based at Monmouth Castle, and the bridge provided access to its training ground on Vauxhall Fields.

The bridge was closed to vehicles in 2011 on safety grounds, although it was reopened shortly afterwards in the face of local opposition but closed again to vehicles in 2018 amid arguments over the responsibility for the funding of repairs. It remains the only known example of such a bridge in the UK in public use.