Alastair Dalton goes behind the scenes of The Tay Road Bridge

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's Transport Correspondent, in somewhere the public will

00:17never have seen before. It's one of Scotland's great river crossings and I'm with the bridge

00:24manager, Alan Hutcherson, from the Tay Road Bridge. Alan, where are we? We are inside

00:32the navigation span box girders on the east side of the bridge. Just tell me about this

00:38in relation to the traffic, where are we? We are right below the traffic, so just above

00:43our head here. You can hear the traffic rumbling over the head. So we're in a twin box girder,

00:50one of the twin box girders, on the east side of the bridge. Above us is 300mm worth of

00:54concrete and then there's about 75mm worth of asphalt and the road traffic is running

01:00right over the top of there. What you're seeing in here is all the internal stiffeners that

01:04keep the box secure and stop it warping. The beauty about the box here is that it's all

01:10inside, it's protected from the weather and you can see it's quite a special environment.

01:16It's a pleasure to come in here and work on this bridge. The Tay Road Bridge is perhaps

01:23rather overlooked compared to some of its famous neighbours like the Forth Road Bridge,

01:28the Forth Bridge, even the Tay Bridge, the rail bridge here. What do you think of this

01:32bridge that you work on? I think it's the best bridge. I admit I'm a bit biased, I've

01:37been here 10 years so I'm very biased. There's a lot more going for this bridge than people

01:43give it credit for. A huge amount of thought went into the design of this bridge by William

01:47Fairhurst. It's incredibly aesthetically pleasing. If you look at the columns that

01:54are below us here, in fact just over there there's a column right below us, they're tapered

01:58from the bottom to the top if you're looking north to south and if you're looking from

02:04east to west they taper the other direction from top to bottom. The perfect form, double

02:11parabola for wind and the river to go past, almost like they've been put in a wind tunnel

02:20when he designed it and I think he possibly did that. Aesthetically also what Mr Fairhurst

02:25did was change the span of the columns so there's a lot more columns towards the Dundee

02:30end than there are towards the Fife end and that keeps the perspective so when you look

02:35at the bridge from any angle, from any side, it looks perfectly proportionate which you

02:43don't get from other bridges so he really thought about the design of this and I know

02:50our cousins across the way at the Queensferry Cross and the Fourth Rail Bridge get all the

02:53applaudeds but there is a lot more going for this bridge than people give it credit for.

02:58The Tay Road Bridge is coming up to its 60th anniversary in 2026. How's it bearing up for

03:05its age? It's in incredibly good condition, that's because it's well maintained. My team

03:11here, we're looking at it all the time, inspection never stops. We have a capital plan of which we

03:20do ongoing repairs, in fact we've just finished some major roadworks to repair the concrete bridge

03:28deck, put new waterproofing in, new movement joints, new curbs and that's all taking place

03:36on a six-month closure so we put the bridge on a contraflow so I appreciate the patience of the

03:41travelling public while we did that but I think they all appreciate that to keep an iconic

03:44structure like this maintained and open for business we must maintain and maintenance

03:51never stops. We'll keep going and as long as we're needed we'll be here. And it's a key part

03:57of the trunk road network, I understand that the diversion is about 50 miles so you obviously

04:03work very hard to try and keep it open at all times. Yeah, we have an opening statistic of

04:12about just over 99% under normal circumstances. I appreciate when we were on the roadworks that

04:17possibly dropped down to about 97% fully open but we do feel the weight responsibility. We recognise

04:23the importance to the whole of the economy in the north-east of Fife, it allows people to connect

04:28to people and places from north-east Fife and Dundee, they're coming for their shopping, they're

04:32coming for their leisure and when we're shut, 50 miles is a lot for people to need to make that

04:41detour. So we recognise the importance of this bridge also to Ninewells Hospital and connection

04:47between St Andrews and Dundee and we also know that a lot of the golfers that come for the major

04:55tournaments at St Andrews will stay in Dundee and they will use the bridge to get across and that

05:01became apparent when we were doing the roadworks just recently when I had to go to meetings for

05:08the Women's Open to make sure that the golfers that were staying in Fife could actually get

05:14across in time for opening. So we do feel the weight of pressure but it's a pleasure and you

05:20know you can't get a better job. And since the bridge was opened by the Queen Mother in 1966 I

05:26understand Dundee has very much taken it to its heart, it views it as our bridge. No you're

05:33absolutely right, I think everybody in Dundee in particular and I think to an extent in Fife

05:37but Dundee in particular feel it's their bridge and everybody I think in Dundee says that's you

05:42know our bridge and when they're coming across the Tay and they see the Tay Bridge they know

05:46their home. It's that important to the people in this area and you know I'm not a Dundonian

05:56but I've lived in Dundee, worked in Dundee for over 30 years and I'll say that I call it my

06:02bridge as well. Thanks Sal and very much for that and you can read more about Tay Road Bridge and

06:08Scotland's Other Bridges at scottsford.com

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