Whitby Swing Bridge 

Scarborough Borough Council statement – Friday 30th July

 
Whitby’s historic swing bridge re-opened this morning to the delight of traders, residents and visitors, following the successful installation of a new gearbox shaft. The bridge had been stuck in the open position since Wednesday 21 July and Scarborough Borough Council had to fly in replacements parts from Italy to ensure that the bridge could be fixed and re-opened as soon as possible.

John Riby, Scarborough Borough Council’s Head of Technical Services said:

“I am delighted that the bridge is open ahead of schedule and that the two sides of Whitby are reunited once more. We fully appreciate the inconvenience that the bridge closure has caused and I would like to thank residents, traders and visitors for their patience over the last week and a half. Since the problems with the bridge began, we have worked extremely hard and made special efforts to speed up the process of diagnosing the problem, locating replacements parts, testing the different components and finally re-assembling the parts in the bridge and re-opening it today ahead of schedule.

“We are also extremely grateful to Welcome to Yorkshire for its support this week in helping us to put on the free shuttle bus service, and also providing staff that have worked together with our council officers in an ambassadorial capacity to give out information to members of the public and guide them to the shuttle buses.”

Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, the official tourism agency for Yorkshire added:

“We are delighted the bridge has re-opened in time for what looks set to be a busy holiday weekend for Whitby. We have spent the week working with Scarborough Borough Council to try to minimise the impact this has had on visitors and traders in the town. We hope putting on extra shuttle buses and providing better signage ensured that visitors still managed to get the best out of their trip to Whitby. A team from Welcome to Yorkshire has been in the town to keep people up to date with progress. We wanted to hammer home the message that Whitby was still open for business."