| I have been watching the problems get worse over the last 10 years at least. It seems to me that people, including H&F and Richmond Councils, and TfL, should be standing up to English Heritage and calling for a more common sense approach to the refurbishment of Hammersmith Bridge. We should demand that more modern materials are used to strengthen the bridge, rather than the historical materials which will never be as strong. I am not against reinstating with historically accurate materials where this does not impair the use of the structure, e.g. a private house. But that is not the case here: the weight and the number of vehicles using the Victorian bridge today is radically different to the 19th century. We should use, for example, modern steel bolts and fastenings. We should put a carbon fibre backing to the decking. I am not a structural engineer, so these may be the wrong terms, but I hope everyone understands the kind of solutions which I am seeking for the vastly increased weight which Hammersmith Bridge must support in the 21st century. |