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Letter: A Simple Footbridge Should Have Been Affordable to Keep Towpath Over Weir Open
Published on: 1 Jul, 2025
Updated on: 1 Jul, 2025
From Andy Jones
See: The National Trust Should Be Embarrassed About How Long the Weir Repair Is Taking
It is over five and a half years now since Tumbling Bay Weir collapsed and the towpath footbridge closed.
A straightforward steel beam and timber deck bridge could be designed and installed for around £250k. That’s £125k each for GBC and NT.
It would only cost more if the bridge was designed to be unnecessarily wide or ornate. The old bridge was single file only, no-one minded. Please can we just get on with it!
And Stoke Park paddling pool whilst we’re at it. See: Tests at Paddling Pool Showed Water Was Too Alkaline, Says GBC
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Paul Robinson
July 1, 2025 at 7:26 pm
Any new bridge should be wide enough for a mobility scooter. If the current path is not suitable for a mobility scooter such a bridge would future-proof it for the path being widened in future.
Sara Tokunaga
July 2, 2025 at 8:27 am
But GBC doesn’t do “simple” footbridges! The exorbitantly priced Walnut Tree Close bridge springs to mind.
Tony Harrison
July 3, 2025 at 5:24 pm
I think this serves as a splendid monument to the utter public-failing embarrassment of an omni-shambles that is GBC. It never fails to fail.
George Potter
July 7, 2025 at 1:11 pm
Given that the National Trust has accepted legal responsibility for the towpath and the bridge, I would gently suggest that laying this at GBC’s doorstep may be a bridge too far, if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase.
Personally I don’t see why local taxpayers should have to foot the bill for a bridge that is the National Trust’s responsibility.
George Potter is a Lib Dem borough councillor for Burpham
S Callanan
July 7, 2025 at 9:05 pm
My understanding (and Cllr Potter would probably know better than me) is that GBC had no choice but to spend money to get the work carried out in June 2020 because there had been a real risk of the taps in the town centre running dry. See my letter: guildford-dragon.com/letter-snail-paced-progress-for-full-weir-repair
Tony Harrison
July 8, 2025 at 11:51 am
Years and years this has been going on. What has GBC – who are supposed to represent and fight for the interests of its taxpaying, residents done to move this along: absolutely nothing whatsoever.
“Blame someone else” is exactly the culture that GBC embodies. Meanwhile, it’s the residents that suffer. How many millions wasted on the totally unnecessary new Walnut Bridge, emblematic failures like The Village (twice!), but can’t even open a towpath; it’s utterly shameful, but is GBC to a tee.
John Redpath
July 8, 2025 at 6:02 pm
The navigation, towpath and bridge are not the property of Guildford Borough Council (GBC). GBC did carry out maintenance on the bridge to keep it safe and accessible but, as Cllr George Potter states, this is not GBC’s bridge. I can hear the outcry now from some Dragon commentators if the council spent £1 million or more on creating a new footbridge which is clearly not their responsibility over a navigation they don’t own.
During my time at GBC, I was well aware of the work John Rigg, the legal department and parks department of the council put in to encourage the owners, National Trust, to repair their bridge. GBC did as much as they possibly could and it is totally wrong to lay this one at their door.
John Redpath is a former R4GV borough councillor.
George Potter
July 8, 2025 at 7:44 pm
I would again gently suggest that what’s being said by Tony Harrison is somewhat at odds with reality, especially given that GBC’s actions on this issue over the past few years have been documented in The Dragon; including resolving the question of land ownership and funding hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of emergency repairs.
If “blame someone else” culture is the problem, however, then I think that blaming a different organisation (GBC) to the one responsible (the National Trust) is a prime example of it.
If the logic is that GBC is an elected body and therefore should be responsible for doing something even when it’s not their bridge, then why aren’t we also asking the same question of Surrey County Council, the House of Commons and the UK Government?
George Potter is the Lib Dem borough councillor for Burpham.
Angela Richardson
July 9, 2025 at 7:43 pm
The National Trust finally took responsibility when I publicised I had raised it with both the relevant minister and then the Secretary of State for DEFRA in September 2022, having been asked by constituents to intervene.
Perhaps Zöe Franklin could give it a further nudge?
Angela Richardson is the former Conservative MP for Guildford.
See archived Dragon articles on Tumbling Bay Weir here.
S Callanan
July 10, 2025 at 5:11 pm
Doesn’t Angela Richardson mean September 2023 rather than September 2022?
Angela Richardson
July 10, 2025 at 6:52 pm
I do. September 2022 was memorable for altogether different reasons. Thank you.
Angela Richardson is the former Conservative MP for Guildford.
Tony Harrison
July 10, 2025 at 9:50 am
It’s just beggars belief that even after five years, the attitude of the “usual suspects” is, on every occasion, “not our problem, blame someone else”.
Imagine (I know it’s a massive stretch) if we had a local council that could even begin to form the thought: “Let’s just get this fixed for the benefit of the taxpayer, and do the blame storming later”.
It’s utterly pathetic, yet it’s the norm that’s got Guildford into the state it’s in.