Save the Marsh Lane Footbridge

The campaign to save the Marsh Lane footbridge from closure has now been successful, as Union Railways have withdrawn their application to demolish the bridge.

When the Channel Tunnel Rail Bill went through Parliament some years ago the promoters of the Bill gave an undertaking then that the demolition of the bridge would not be needed. This was in response to a petition against the Bill from local residents groups, and others who regularly use the bridge to get access to Leyton Marshes, and to walk or cycle in the Lea Valley. It was then, and still is, a very popular local route.

The Bill was an unusual type of Bill, a hybrid Bill, part public, part private. It was considered for nearly a year by a Select Committee established for the purpose, and whose members had to deal with literally hundreds of petitions or protests on various aspects of the Bill.

I now discover that a really obscure Parliamentary rule means that undertakings given to Commons Committees considering Private Bills cannot be made legally binding, while similar undertakings given to Lords Committees can be! So the Bill promoters were promising something they could not be made to deliver.

Then we heard earlier this year that Union Rail had put in a planning application to demolish the bridge. They argued that tracks on which Channel Tunnel trains would be parked, at the rear of the depot they are proposing to build, would go beneath the bridge. Because of the height of the trains they could not fit under the existing bridge. Replacement by a new bridge would be expensive, and for security reasons the whole of the bridge, and ramps leading to it, would have to be fully enclosed, making it unattractive to use by pedestrians and cyclists, who would not be able to see if anyone else was nearby.

The response to the proposal to close the bridge was huge. Local residents groups, environmental campaigners, cyclist, local schools all reacted angrily to the proposals. I was pleased that local Councillors from both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats came together to work to oppose the closure. I spoke at a  packed public meeting at Lammas School, along with Cllr Stella Creasy, and Cllr Bob Sullivan. Representatives from Union Rail were present and were left in no doubt about the strength of local feeling. Hundreds of local people signed petitions against the closure, which were presented to Government Ministers, along with letters of objection to the demolition application.

Now the application for demolition has been withdrawn. It also turns out that the tracks under the bridge were not going to be built anyway, and would only be built at some future date if the demand for more space to park trains materialised. Yet this must have been known to Union Rail all along !

What we now have to do is make sure that the existing bridge is maintained properly so that it isn't closed by default, on grounds of becoming unsafe to use.

July 2004

The photo above shows Neil Gerrard MP, Councillors Clyde Loakes and Stella Creasy, and local campaigners, with the petition about to be handed in to Government Ministers.

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