Campaigners call for 'completely unsafe' bridge to stay shut after enjoying two pollution-free years

Campaigners in Gosforth are dreading the day when a busy bridge finally reopens, after enjoying two pollution-free years.

Residents of the Garden Village are urging council bosses to keep Salters Bridge closed for good, after seeing a dramatic improvement in their health and quality of life since it shut.

The route was closed to traffic to stop it becoming a rat run for thousands of cars during the long-delayed works on nearby Killingworth Road.

But with Killingworth Road soon to reopen to two-way traffic for the first time since July 2017, restrictions on the bridge - which links Hollywood Avenue in Gosforth and Salters Lane in Longbenton - are also set to be lifted.

That is a major worry for members of the Garden Village Action group, who say that the absence of toxic fumes emitted from cars has been hugely beneficial to residents with long-standing health conditions - including persistent coughs, pulmonary fibrosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Shaun Curry said: “In the face of all the evidence of the health impact from the commuting cars, I’m absolutely astounded that the Council won’t deviate from the planned re-opening.

“The volume of traffic going over a single track bridge is completely unsafe, is the Council going to wait for someone to be killed before they act?”

Another resident, Peter Donald, warned that reopening Salters Bridge will “unravel all of the positive changes that have happened over the two years”.

Fellow campaigner Frances Hinton added: “The council’s re-opening of the bridge to motorised traffic, continuing to prioritise car travel over walking and cycling, is inconsistent with their declaration of a climate emergency and their commitment to achieving zero-carbon by 2030.”

Newcastle City Council launched a public consultation on the bridge’s long-term future in October 2017, but no decision on whether to keep it shut was ever taken.

The authority says that the route must reopen this summer - but have left the door open for it to close again, with a second consultation scheduled for later this year.

A council spokesman said: “We know from public feedback that many people feel closure of Salters Bridge has resulted in a number of improvements and benefits for nearby residential areas and that many local people would like the bridge to be permanently closed.

“The legal order under which the bridge is currently closed however is a temporary one, put in place to prevent vehicles rat-running through residential streets during the closure of Killingworth Road.

“Because the current closure order is a temporary one, it does not give us the authority to keep the road closed on a permanent basis.

“Therefore, Salters Bridge will remain closed until later in the summer and we will make a full announcement once we have an agreed date for it to reopen.

“No decisions have been made regarding the long-term future of the bridge and this will be subject to a wider consultation later in the year.”