Discussion on Papers 6 to 8

I. Firth, Flint & Neil I Partnership

My question relates to Paper 7. The strengthening of the bridge over the A3 is clearly very complex, time-consuming and risky. Would a replacement bridge not be a more economic solution overall?

J. Craig Paper 7

As the paper states, a joint study was carried out. Surrey County Council looked at the replacement and we looked at the strengthening. Following this study, we compared our estimates and although the strengthening was more expensive in terms of traffic delays, from the structural point of view it was quite a lot cheaper. Overall it was the more economic solution. We have found this to be the case on a number of previous schemes when we have compared the cost of strengthening with the cost of replacement. You can carry out a considerable amount of repairs to a structure before it becomes cheaper to replace it.