The new bridge between Achill island and the mainland failed on the last day of a guarantee from one of the contractors on the bridge, a meeting of the Belmullet electoral area committee was told this week. The bridge failed to close on November 19, 2010, and caused a large number of people to be held up for a number of hours.
“On November 19 there was a planned opening of the bridge to allow a boat to pass through, but it failed to close,” Michael Mongan, senior engineer for Mayo County Council, told the meeting. “It actually coincided with the last day of a guarantee from one of the contractors who worked on the bridge. We got a report on the problem before Christmas, which raised some further questions, and the contractor and the sub contractors will have to come back to the bridge to run a full check on it again. This is planned to happen in the next two to three weeks and will see us test the bridge and fully open it and close it over the course of a night to not delay people too much.
“We should have it fixed in the next two to three weeks,” Mr Mongan added. “We would have done it sooner but the bad weather at Christmas delayed all that taking place.”
Sinn Féin councillor Rose Conway-Walsh asked if there was money held over by Mayo County Council from the contract in case something like this happened, to which Mr Mongan told her that there was and Mayo County Council was fully covered.
