Transporter Bridge - £30M may not be enough for fix
The Tees Valley Mayor doesn’t think that £30m is going to be enough to fix up the Transporter Bridge.
Conservative Mayor Ben Houchen thought that the sum, confirmed by TVCA cabinet as part of a £978m allocation from central government, would not be enough to make the bridge safe again, let alone bring it back into operation. During a radio appearance earlier this month, he also said building a road bridge where the Transporter is located would be a non-starter due to its impact on businesses on the River Tees.
The mayor also highlighted an argument he had heard, which was that it could possibly be cheaper to start from scratch building the Transporter Bridge, but there are many added costs of trying to work on the existing one, with its cultural and heritage significance. He shared his view that the project should be a heritage one, rather than a transport scheme.
On their part, the government said that they have given local leaders the tools to deliver better and more reliable journeys for their communities and said it was up to the mayor, to decide which projects to work on with the £978m allocation.
Appearing on his monthly slot on BBC Radio Tees in early August, Ben Houchen explained that the Transporter Bridge is owned jointly by Stockton and Middlesbrough Councils, with management by the latter. As part of the near £1bn investment into transport from the government, he said £30m was signed off to go towards the “fixing” of the Transporter Bridge.
Earlier this summer, Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) documentation, released following confirmation of £978m funding for transport projects across the region, detailed the ambitions regarding projects that were signed off by TVCA Cabinet back in January 2024. These projects were put under review when the new Labour government came to power, with the entire tranche of funding confirmed in early June.
Some of the flagship projects include restoring the Transporter Bridge. The project status explains that it is currently in development, with the project delivery start date listed as April 2027 and a target completion date of March 2029. The programme deliverability assessment describes a “likely” outcome for the project.
However, as was reported in June, it may not all be smooth sailing, as the funding/cost deliverability assessment is listed in documentation as amber and not green. The reason given for this is: “Recent updated costs suggest budget pressure which will require value engineering and / or descoping”.
On Radio Tees, Mayor Houchen said that the feasibility study is ongoing, with people looking at the physical structure, but added: “It is increasingly likely that £30m is not going to get close to needing to fix the Transporter Bridge as it is. And that would just be to make it safe, that’s not to bring it back into operation.
“There are arguments and I don’t know the veracity of this suggestion, but it has been said to me, it would cost somewhere between £15m and £20m to completely rebuild the Transporter Bridge. But to fix it as it is, because it’s a heritage project, it’s a cultural asset, obviously you can’t just knock it down and rebuild it, to keep it as it is, is going to be much more expensive.”
He also mentioned that Heritage England have now put the Transporter Bridge on a register, making it “more expensive and complicated to deal with”, describing the bridge as a “real problem” to solve.
The mayor discussed how the £30m allocated to the bridge has to be used to enable people to use it for transport, due to funding constraints. That money cannot be used “to turn it into a great cultural asset that doesn’t work”.
Mayor Houchen also shot down the suggestion of putting a bridge underneath the existing Transporter Bridge, saying: “The reason you couldn’t do that is because it would destroy the economy of the river past the Transporter Bridge, because you wouldn’t be able to get the big ships underneath it. The Transporter Bridge itself, now, is already a hindrance to developing business up the river, because of the height restriction of the Transporter Bridge. So if you put a road bridge underneath that, you would destroy literally thousands of jobs.”
The mayor added that a lot of the pushback that he receives from the government (specifically transport officials) is that the bridge has “limited transport impact”. He said even when it was used, there weren’t that many people using the bridge, only “handfuls” on a daily basis.
While he thought that a £30m allocation was justifiable, with figures potentially up to £70m needed, he thought it would be “really hard” to justify taxpayers’ money, from a transport point of view. He added: “There’d be a local riot if we said: ‘We’re really sorry we can’t save the Transporter Bridge.’ Something has to be done about it.” But he added it is a “difficult” situation.
He believed it should be a heritage project, rather than a transport project. “But because we’ve allocated £30m, we think there’s a way of including some transport money in it. But again, we’ve got an issue that even that £30m, it’s looking increasingly likely that’s not going to be able to get us near to where we need to be able to save the Transporter Bridge”, he concluded.
Middlesbrough Council was approached for comment, and declined to give one. The Department for Transport (DfT) was also approached for comment, and a DfT spokesperson said: “This Government is committed to transforming local transport right across the country. That’s why we’ve confirmed £15.6bn to give local leaders the tools they need to deliver better, more reliable journeys for their communities.
“On top of this, £978m has been allocated to the Tees Valley Combined Authority, as part of our Plan for Change, to develop ambitious local transport plans that will strengthen connectivity and unlock growth.”
The £978m was the region’s chunk of the £15.6bn overall funding. The government did not offer a specific answer when asked if there was potential for more funding to head up to Teesside to get the Transporter Bridge up and running again.
The government was also asked if there was potential for the project to be transferred from being a transport project to a heritage project, as Mayor Houchen had spoken about. While no direct answer was offered, the government confirmed that funding from the £978m is allocated to individual projects by the mayor, not government and that the funding must be used to meet ‘Transport for City Regions’ objectives.