ANSWERS TO SLIP QUERIES

17 February 2005

Mr Stroud (Have Your Say, February 11) asks several questions regarding the Slip Bridge. The answers are as follows. The amount made available for the restoration of the bridge was the amount estimated by the council's engineers and recommended to cabinet for its repair and placing back where it had come from.

It was not necessary to remove the whole span to remove all the concrete and replace it but it would have meant closing Mumbles Road for several weeks while it was done. I am sure Mr Stroud is in a small minority who wanted the work done in situ and the road closed for several weeks.

The angle of the flats was set in the planning application and if the intention was to improve the view the sensible thing to have done would have been to remove the bridge before the land was sold, not after the flats were built.

The fact is that the previous Labour administration wanted to replace a bridge that we considered a Swansea landmark and the new Liberal Democrat-led administration does not.

Councillor Mike J Hedges
County Hall
Swansea