Market Gate Bridge: Barnsley town centre 'deserves more than a standard bridge' says councillor

BMBC announced that work would begin on the bridge next month, and say the cost has now reached £9.7m – almost double the initial £5m budget, although £6.8m is from external funding sources.

Works are due to begin on-site in July and the bridge is due to be completed by late summer 2023.

Network Rail first approached the council to discuss closing the existing Jumble Lane crossing in 2013, and plans for the new bridge were unveiled in January 2018.

The leader of the council’s main opposition group says the cost is going to be ‘a real kick in the teeth for the residents of Barnsley’.

Councillor Hannah Kitching, leader of Barnsleys Lib Dem group and Councillor for Penistone West told the local democracy reporting service: “The council has been hell bent on pursuing what looks to me like a vanity project.”

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Coun Kitching added that the news that the bridge will open in Summer 2023 is an ‘unacceptable amount of time’, and added that the cost is a ‘real kick in the teeth’ for Barnsley residents amid a backdrop of rising living costs.

However, Councillor Tim Cheetham, cabinet spokesperson for regeneration and culture said that he project is ‘an essential part of the town centre’s regeneration’, and ‘to do anything less would let down business investors who have welcomed this iconic project, the football club who want strong connections to the Glass Works, and the people of Barnsley who want and deserve high quality design and construction in the heart of the town’.

“You don’t make Barnsley a place of possibilities by doing things in the usual way – you do it through creating an extraordinary place, doing things differently, making a place special for the people who live, work and visit,” added Coun Cheetham.

“The Glass Works and our town centre deserves more than a standard bridge. The temporary bridge we already have is a standard bridge. To replace it with something similar to that would not be suitable for the volume of pedestrian traffic on matchdays, and would not have attracted £7m in external funding.”

Coun Cheetham added that the delays to the projects were down to ‘several issues’, including sewer diversion work and ‘the complex process of appointing a contractor’.

“The tender for this project launched more than 18 months ago in June 2020. Responses were received in October 2020, evaluation, due diligence and further negotiation took place from October to May,” added Coun Cheetham.

“We identified a preferred contractor in NMCN, however our procurement and finance officers identified some concerns about NMCM’s viability when they were completing their due diligence checks.

“Our teams then spent months negotiating with NMCN to build safeguards into the contract to make sure the council and investments were protected in the event that NMCN ran into difficulties.

“After months of hard work, a position was finally agreed in July 2021 which protected the council and allowed work to begin. This was finally signed by NMCN on 30 September, but the firm fell into administration just four days later.

“Within two days, the infrastructure assets of NMCN, including the contract to build the bridge, were acquired by Keltbray from the administrators. However more time was required to transfer the contract to Keltbray. This work has now been successfully concluded.

“It’s great news that now after months of hard work and negotiation we have been able to secure Keltbray to complete this project on almost identical terms to the deal agreed with NMCN.

“The £9.7m includes additional work over the original proposals and also allows for significant increases in steel and other material costs since the bridge was first designed. The scheme also includes further public realm and highway improvements at both ends of the bridge.

“It’s a major investment backed by Network Rail and the South Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority, and it’s important the new bridge is of as high a quality as the Glass Works. Especially so when the majority of the cost is funded by outside agencies and not the council.”