BLAKEY BRIDGE in Sowerby looks as though it could replicate the saga of Creet's Bridge at Kirkby Malzeard, where the county council is locked in confrontation with English Heritage.

The county wants to re-build both bridges and make them wider to cope with modern-day traffic, but English Heritage opposes any changes.

So many lorries have hit the Sowerby bridge that the county has decided to take action to prevent further damage.

Engineers are looking at a package of measures to reduce accidents. County Coun Jan Marshall told Sowerby Parish Council that one of the options was that the listed bridge be demolished and a new one built.

"Whether this would go down the same avenue as the drawn-out argument with English Heritage over Creet's Bridge, I can't say. But I have been asked to inquire how the council would feel about such a plan," she said.

The council, although anxious to prevent further accidents, was unanimous in its opposition to re-building.

"There are far cheaper remedies which would be just as efficient. This is a landmark in the district and to change it would be wrong. We just want it made safer and prevent heavy lorries from using it," said chairman Coun Derek Stratton.

Councillors claimed that a simple way of deterring heavily-laden lorries from turning off the A19 and travelling over the bridge would be to build a small island in the middle of the road leading up to it. A design for this was prepared some time ago by Sowerby Coun Don Cartridge. The council has submitted it twice to road engineers.

"But the county council seems to have completely ignored this. It was a relatively simple way of discouraging lorries from using the bridge and giving drivers the opportunity of changing routes," he said.

"Recently, I have seen huge lorries heavily laden with tarmac crossing the bridge. It was never meant for such use.

"When lorries follow the signs to Sowerby down the lane they don't realise what lies ahead. The lorries, which cannot get over the bridge and bend, have great trouble reversing back up the country lane and hold up traffic.

"To enlarge the grass island at the approach and mark it with no right turn signs would solve the problem. Lorries are using this lane as a short cut. It could easily be done as a temporary measures with huge tyres."

Other suggestions by the county council to solve the situation are to issue more prominent weight and width restrictions.

Coun Cartridge said: "No amount of signs will stop lorries going down the lane. The approach road from the A19 is a wide, fast road, which doesn't show the narrow, twisting, bridge and bend beyond."

Coun Steve Hoyland said drivers just ignored signs. "We should ask county to take another look at Coun Cartridge's plan."

Coun Marshall will take all the observations back to county.

The bridge has been hit twice in the last six months, the last repairs costing about £16,000.

l The bridge at Kirkby Malzeard was badly damaged in the floods of 2000. There, parish councillors and local people support plans to rebuild wider, but English Heritage has threatened to take the matter to a costly public inquiry.