Media centre

Wednesday 16 Nov 2022

Wimbledon bridge ranks second place in list of top 10 ‘most bashed bridges’ in the UK

Region & Route:

Southern

| Southern: Kent

| Southern: Sussex

| Southern: Wessex

Network Rail has released new figures which show that a bridge in Wimbledon, South West London was the second most-struck structure in the UK over the past year.

Network Rail’s Southern region has seen an increase in bashed bridges along the region with recent data showing the 'top hitter' being Lower Downs Road bridge in Wimbledon which was struck 18 times - nearly 50% more than the previous year.

The shift in pattern also spreads across South East London through Kent where Mantle Road bridge in Brockley and St Mildreds Road bridge in Hither Green are also in the top 15 most common sites.

With the Black Friday and Christmas delivery rush fast approaching, and more large vehicles on Britain’s roads, Network Rail urges lorry drivers and haulage operators to ‘Wise Up, Size Up’. The ongoing campaign reminds drivers to take better care by understanding the height of their vehicles and choosing suitable routes before starting their journeys to avoid disruption of bashed bridges.

As well as being costly, bridge strikes can cause lots of delays and have a knock-on-effect to passenger services. While numbers are low in the Southern region, on average 1.17 bridges are hit every day and Network Rail is looking for ways to reduce this further by installing cameras at some sites to aide quicker response times.

           

    

John Halsall, Network Rail's managing director for the Southern region, said: "The impact of bridge strikes can have a long-lasting effect for both train and road users. Not only are bridge strikes dangerous, disruptive and costly but the money used to fix the damage could be used to improve infrastructure elsewhere on the route.

“The importance of this campaign is to urge drivers to plan ahead before setting out and checking that the route they've chosen is suitable for larger, heavy goods vehicles.

"We'd like to thank those who are and continue to take extra care when driving, especially over the festive period when the volume of traffic increases on the roads."

Network Rail works with a number of railway industry partners to tackle bridge strikes, including Highways England, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and hauliers. While incidents have reduced in recent years, numbers have steadily started to creep up again - coinciding with an estimated increase in traffic volume on Britain’s roads. Overall, provisional estimates show motor vehicles travelled 318.6 billion vehicle miles in Great Britain from April 2021 to March 2022 - a 29.7% increase compared to the year ending March 2021. Lorry traffic, in particular, increased by 10.1% to 17.8 billion vehicle miles. *