A £50m bypass meant to deter vehicles from using the station bridge at Ely clocked another ‘fail’ on Sunday when a van ‘misjudged the height requirements’ and crashed into it.
“The vehicle was recovered and there was thankfully no damage to the bridge,” said a spokesperson for Cambridgeshire police on their East Cambridgeshire Facebook page.
“Please ensure you are aware of the height of your vehicle and pay attention to height restriction signs!
Police said they were called out as the van “crashed into the bridge blocking the road. The van misjudged the height requirements”.
One resident told East Cambs Police on Facebook: “You can’t miss the signs. Highways spent God knows how many millions building a bloody bypass, so you do not need to go under the bridge.
“We do get a lot of foreign truck drivers picking up and dropping off at a mega large vegetable processing plant on the A142 a couple of miles up the road towards Newmarket and they do not make the mistake.
“It is mainly British truckers who probably used to use the route but have been on other routes for years and then try to use their old route, sort of on auto pilot. But most are white van drivers!”
Another wrote: “They built a ring road to alleviate the town centre problem, but why try a 10′ van under a 9′ bridge when you can go up and over just to the side.”
Latest figures from Network Rail show they recorded 1,833 bridge strikes in the 2021 to 2022 financial year, up from a five-year low of 1,624 in 2020 to 2021.
“They cost us almost £12m in delay and cancellation fees between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022,” says Network Rail.
“They also cause thousands of hours of train delays for passengers each year.”
But Ely is no longer Britain’s most bashed bridge.
That ‘title’ passed in recent years to the Stonea Road bridge on the B1098 near Manea, also in Cambridgeshire.
Drivers struck the bridge 33 times in the year ending March 2022, amounting to £10,526 in train delays and cancellation costs.
The other big hitters on the list include Lower Downs Road in Wimbledon, South West London, and Harlaxton Road bridge, Lincolnshire – struck 18 and 17 times respectively.
Coincidentally on the weekend Cambridgeshire police were attending to the Ely bridge incident, there was some respite for those living near Stonea bridge which is now closed for two months.
The access along the Sixteen Foot road is closed from Boots bridge to Bedlam bridge to allow Anglian Water to put in new pipes.
It means access is blocked in either direction to Stonea bridge meaning it is open only for residents from either direction.
But Network Rail has no intention of closing the bridge at Stonea for good.
“Closing the underpass or making the level crossing the primary crossing route would significantly increase the usage of the level crossing, leading to a higher likelihood of safety-related incidents. Cambridgeshire County Council believes this would make the road more dangerous than it currently is,” it said last year.
