PLANS have been lodged for a new foot and cycle bridge to be installed over a river in Christchurch.
BCP Council has applied for permission to build a bridge over the River Mude where it passes Watermans Park.
The bridge is part of a project by the local authority’s greenspace development team, working with The Parks Foundation, to ‘revitalise’ the park.
If approved, the three-metre-wide bridge would provide a new active travel route to the north and north east of Somerford estate, and provide a link to an off-road route to Mude Valley Nature Reserve.
In its application, BCP Council said the bridge would ‘increase social control of the park by activating a through route’, and ‘negate the present desire to dump trolleys in the Mude river as a way to cross the river’.
As well as installing the bridge, BCP Council has plans to create a shared route path either side, from Dorset Road to the Christchurch Bypass bridge, and maintain the off-road route to Mude Valley Nature Reserve.
It also wants to install trail markers to direct people to Mude Valley, as well as a Southern Damselfly wooden sculpture and information lecterns to educate park users on the bio-diversity of the newly accessible area, the Mude River and the link to Mude Valley.
The project to ‘revitalise’ Watermans Park was informed by the responses to a survey of parks users and residents of Somerford estate in 2020.
A question was asked specifically about the bridge: “If it was possible, would you like/find it useful if a new access route from the east of the park was extended across the bypass?”
Out of the 110 respondents to the question, 70 people responded 'yes', while 40 said 'no'.
BCP Council said in its application it could ‘assume 36 people actually answered no’, with four people reportedly misunderstanding the proposal.
Those who answered 'no' gave comments including, ‘It would be dangerous to have a second access route’, ‘It would not be useful’ and ‘It was not necessary’.
A decision is yet to be made on the planning application.
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