Photo by !Laurin
If you recall, the Forth Road Bridge's suspension cables have been deemed not fit for purpose. In fact, they're snapping at the rate of one a month. The Japanese were called in to see if they could de-humidify the cables, and that process is ongoing.
In the meantime, some weird and wacky schemes have been proposed - including building a bridge over the current bridge! - while engineers have worked on some not-so-weird-and-wacky solutions.
In fact, it appears now that the bridge could be repaired for only £120 million. I say "only" £120 million, since you have to compare it to the figure for building a completely new bridge - £2.3 billion!
There is a political snag though. All the other major parties (plus the Lib Dems)* have until now thrown their weight behind building a new bridge. It was seen as one of those big-ticket items with glory being heaped upon whichever First Minister got to cut the ribbon.
Well, perhaps not any more. The new poll shows that only 34% of Scots support building a new bridge. That would certainly wipe the smile off the dignitaries faces as they attended the opening ceremony, knowing that they had built a huge white elephant that the public weren't going to thank them for.
There is another problem, of course. The Scottish Government don't have the money to build a new bridge anyway, so they may just have to plump for the cheaper option (and blame London for keeping the purse strings closed).
*that line is (c) James at Two Doctors!
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