At a Decision Session this morning, Pete Kilbane, City of York Council (CYC) Executive Member for Economy Transport, approved a plan to repair the Appleton Road Bridge, which since last October has had a weight restriction due to structural issues.
Unusually it was not until this morning that CYC said they were sure who owned the bridge, which is Sustrans. However even now there is a discussion ongoing as to whether CYC (the highway owner) is responsible for the repair cost or Sustrans is. CYC hopes this will be resolved in a few weeks, but the good news is the funding commitment is there of a likely level of £300,000. Work will continue on exactly what specifically is needed.
The report did have options to temporarily reopen the bridge with traffic lights to only have one lane going at a time; however these were incredibly expensive at £600 a day. I urged them to look at a temporary one way weight limit - eg heavy vehicles could travel from Bishopthorpe but not towards it and cars etc could go both ways. This would stop the chance of two HGVs on the bridge at the same time (which is the unacceptable weight) and limit the number coming through Copmanthorpe and council staff will consider this.
As well as turns like Manor Heath / School Lane and Main Street / Station Road there is obviously a real.problem on Temple Lane, especially whete there is no footpath. There are no easy solutions but the Parish Council is looking at a Vehicle Activated Speed sign and trying to get more action on any speeding. As the road a 30mph legislation means we cannot have repeater signs but I am trying to get more 'Slow' type road markings.
The most likely time for the bridge to be repaired by is the end of 2024 which looks a very frustrating long time away.
As and when the bridge is dealt with I continue to believe the haulage firms at Acaster are simply in the wrong place and should be near motorways and not somewhere they can only get to by going through villages (but where of course rents are cheaper). However this remains an issue where we have very limited say council wise.
