Millennium Bridge to close for repairs

By Chief Correspondent Rob Thomas

FORTON Lake Millennium Bridge in Gosport will be closed to pedestrians and cyclists later this month so that work can be carried out on the central lifting section.

Gosport Borough Council has posted on its Facebook page that people will not be able to use the bridge:

• between 8.30am on Monday, October 18, and 4.30pm on Wednesday, October 20, and
• on Thursday and Friday, October 21 and 22, it will be closed from 8.30am to 4.30pm.

The 170-metre bridge was built in 2000 as part of the ‘Renaissance of Portsmouth Harbour’ Project, and is an important section of the Gosport Waterfront Trail which links two of the borough’s museums and heritage sites – the Explosion! Museum in Priddy’s Hard to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Haslar Jetty Road.

Co-founder of the Friends of the Millennium Bridge, Philippa Dickinson, told The Globe: “From the count we did during Gosport Heritage Open Days of the number of people using the bridge, we know several hundred [pedestrians and cyclists] are using it every day.”

She recognises that the closures will cause disruption for commuters and other users but welcomes the decision by Gosport Borough Council to get the repairs done so that after about five years of not working, the raising and lowering of the central section will soon be possible once again.

The bridge’s 21st anniversary was celebrated during the Heritage Open Days last month, and there is a history of its construction, and that of a previous wooden ‘rolling’ bridge, on the Royal Clarence Marina Residents’ Association website and can be accessed HERE.

Philippa and the other co-founder of Friends of the Millennium Bridge, Kathy Azopardi, are currently analysing the information from the 260 responses to a ‘Bridge User’ survey.

Photo (top): Forton Lake Millennium Bridge. Photograph by Patrick Conem. Reproduced with permission.