Bridges over or under highways

A bridge is a structure carrying the highway over a river, canal, railway, motorway, etc, or, carrying a railway, motorway, etc over the highway.

The Council is the Highway Authority and the 'Bridge Authority' for the bridges owned by the Council. The Council owns and is responsible for many highway bridges. There are also other bridge owners/authorities and the largest of these are the Highway Agency (trunk roads and motorways), Network Rail (railways), British Rail Property Board (disused railways), the Environment Agency (main rivers) and British Waterways Board (canals).

As a rule the bridge usually belongs to the organisation (or its successor) that had cause to need the bridge in the first place.

Ownership of bridges has been transferred in some cases, such as when the responsibility for a route changes.

The Council's bridges are inspected by Bedfordshire Highways approximately every two years and a programme of maintenance work is drawn up.

Incidents of damage through vehicle collision, storm damage, or other causes are investigated as soon as possible. If you report damage to bridges by vehicles, then if you know the vehicle details it may mean it is possible for us to claim the cost of the repairs to the bridge or culvert.

To report any issues with regard to bridges, please use the contact details below

Highways Helpdesk
Bedfordshire County Council
6th Floor
County Hall
Bedford
MK42 9AP
Tel: (01234) 228661
Email: highways@bedscc.gov.uk |