The Drayton Road Bridge divides Abingdon in two. To the south of the River Ock about a third of the population live. They suffer more traffic problems than the rest of Abingdon.
The bridge acts as a bottleneck to traffic coming from the south, and has been widened on a couple of ocassions, most recently in about 1970. Looking up inside the bridge it is layered like the growth of a tree. On one side the bridge is arched, in the middle the circular arch is made of bricks, finally the most recent bridge widening uses prefabricated concrete.
It not only acts as a bottleneck to traffic, last July the water could not get under the arches and backed up and backed up and flooded all over. This crack willow has split and fallen into the stream. Just another impediment!
I'm a fisherman and see these blockages all the time. we also pay £25/year to the EA but not sure what for.
The environment agency have phoned back and are going to look. The first 2 pictures are from my stock, only the third is current.
You seem to get into places most other people dont! I have walked over the bridge most days but never had had that view. Your site is more informative than local news and papers.
Martin, I have just phoned it through to the environment agency who deal with such matters. Maybe I'm the first to notice.
This is atrocious – just shows how much the council cares about flood prevention despite their comments in the recent newsletter and on the web page!