BRIDGING THE DIVIDE

22 February 2005

It would be nice to see all councillors work together for the benefit of Swansea, its citizens, its heritage and its future.

We really do not want to see councillors trying to score political points by standing on the picket line (as in the dispute over Service@Swansea) or blaming the present administration for decisions made by the previous administration. We have been told by the present administration that the Slip Bridge is regarded as a part of Swansea's heritage and should be replaced.

Councillor Mike Hedges also assures us (Have Your Say, February 17) "that the previous Labour administration wanted to replace a bridge that it considered a Swansea landmark" and that money was made available for repairing and replacing the bridge.

So why is the bridge still rusting away on the Recreation Ground?If insufficient money has been provided, then either the estimated cost of £690,000 is over-inflated to strengthen the argument for removing the bridge or the council's engineers got their sums wrong. Whichever, the shortfall could be found from the council or even from public subscription (a sure way of measuring public support).

There has been a shameful waste of £35,000 in conducting a public consultation exercise which was so heavily biased that the council should have got an overwhelming vote in favour of removing the bridge. Instead the council is not prepared to publish the results of the survey.

There has also been much public speculation that the bridge was removed to improve the view from the newly built flats.

But Councillor Hedges denies this, saying that "the sensible thing to have done would have been to remove the bridge before the land was sold".

So this beggars the question as to how much money has the council lost on the land value by removing the bridge after the land was sold.

Or, to put it another way, how much money has the developer saved by buying the land before the bridge was removed?

The Slip Bridge was and is one of the few remaining pieces of Swansea's heritage.

It should be fully restored. The idea that it should be placed somewhere else along the promenade is just hare-brained.

Mike Stroud
Gabalfa Road
Sketty
Swansea