THE famous swing bridge in Whitby is to be closed overnight to allow urgent maintenance work to be carried out.

The bridge, which carries traffic over the River Esk, will be closed from 8pm tomorrow (July 1) to 6am the following morning.

North Yorkshire County Council is carrying out the work after engineers detected leakages in the bridge jacking system.

The precautionary project should prevent any more serious damage.

A free bus service for pedestrians wishing to get from one side of the closure to other will be available every 15 minutes from 8pm to midnight. While the road is closed the bridge will be open to river traffic.

The bridge was upgraded two years ago, reducing the likelihood of it breaking down and improving its resilience.

The computerised technology used by the bridge has also been upgraded so faults can be tracked and located precisely - which is helping to speed the repairs.

However the authority stressed the bridge was still a mechanical one that dated back more than a century so occasional problems were inevitable.