A LEADING councillor has demanded a ‘sinking’ access road bridge to Teesside Park shopping centre be replaced.

However Stockton Borough Council has argued that £1.5m of repair work has proved far more cost effective than the £28m it would need to replace the bridge.

The slip road to Teesside Park off the A66 sits on a peat bog and subsidence can cause cracks and holes on the road surface.

Stockton council was spending an average of £20,000 in repair work over ten years before a making more extensive £1.5m improvements last year. The new repairs involved extending traffic light cables and road resurfacing that covered cracks in 1.3m-deep tarmac.

However some councillors have raised concerns in a council report that the authority could face financial implications should the access sink in the future. In 2010 a meter-wide hole appeared under the road and there have been several other incidents of subsidence causing cracking to the tarmac.

Teesside Park is worth millions of pounds to the Tees Valley economy and is a major source of employment and it would be impossible to close the shopping centre while the bridge is replaced at a cost of £10m without first building another which would cost £18m.

Cabinet member for regeneration and transport, Cllr Nigel Cooke, Labour, said: “The expected lifespan of the repairs is 15 to 20 years, with the possibility that some minor resurfacing may be needed after 10 years

“The bridge is subject to a proactive monitoring regime and in the event of any further problems being identified in the longer term, the most appropriate form of remedial action would be considered in detail with Highways England and Tees Valley Combined Authority.”

Stockton councillor Matthew Vickers, Conservative, argued that even with last year’s repairs there were no guarantees that serious repairs wouldn’t be needed in the next ten years. He also said that Middlesbrough Borough Council and the Government’s Highways Agency would be required take on some of the financial burden to replace the bridge.

He said it was time to formulate a long-term maintenance plan to comprehensively deal with the issue: “It’s been a year since the review of bridges and the council hasn’t yet contacted our counterparts in Middlesbrough to discuss it further. Teesside Park is a really big deal for our whole economy. It’s time to get on with it.”

The bridge was built by the now defunct Teesside Development Corporation in 1990 on an old peat riverbed. It has been sinking ever since but there have been several repairs over the years. In 2010 Stockton council pushed for Government funding to deal with the issue but no extra money was granted.