A £500,000 plan has been unveiled to widen a historic bridge on a busy commuter route which has suffered ‘continual damage’ from traffic.

North Yorkshire County Council said action was needed to make the 18th century Tanton Bridge north of Stokesley fit for the demands of the 21st century, following a chain of incidents resulting in road closures and costly repairs.

The authority said the grade II listed arched ashlar sandstone structure over the River Tame was very narrow for HGV vehicles, did not feature footpaths and only allowed a single vehicle to pass over it at a time.

It said the bridge, which has seen a number of collisions in recent years, was also facing increased traffic demand due to new housing being built to the south of the bridge on the B1365.

In response, the authority has submitted an application to its own planners to widen the bridge to allow unrestricted two-way traffic flow and create footpaths.

A spokesman for the authority said should listed building consent and the application be approved, work would take place on the upstream side of the bridge to make it 5.75m wider.

He said the new structure would be detailed to match the height of the existing bridge to minimise the visual and flood impact of the changes and to maintain the older bridge’s character.

The spokesman said: “Due to the constant damage the bridge receives from vehicle incidents, the condition of the stone masonry parapet is poor and will need to be fully replaced due the fact that nearly all of the stone is damaged and not the original stone. The only public issue with some of the design options is that there may be significant disruption to traffic and unhappy local residents during the construction works as this is a busy commuter route from Stokesley to Middlesbrough.”

The authority’s roads boss, Councillor Don Mackenzie said many of the almost 2,000 bridges in the county had listed status protection.

Cllr Mackenzie said should the application be approved, the work at Tanton would be “carried out extremely carefully and sensitively” by the council’s bridges specialists, who he said had been recognised as among the country’s finest.

He said: “We have a number of bridges that get struck regularly and that tends to break down the parapet walls. We are investing here to make the bridge more suitable for 21st century needs, whereas when it was constructed it was used by packhorses.”