It could take another decade and £250,000,000 worth of repairs before Hammersmith Bridge will reopen to cars. The 138-year-old landmark crossing, which survived an IRA bombing, is causing grey hairs to Londoners as it has been closed to motor traffic for almost six years.
![[Rowers passing underneath Hammersmith Bridge in London.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_188009798-beb0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Now an MP has revealed that the west London bridge might not reopen fully until 2035. Putney MP Fleur Anderson said that even if the work started now, it would take ’10 years of building.’. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
Up Next. She accused the previous Conservative government’s failure to ‘get on’ with the works for the reopening delay. Cars were forbidden ‘indefinitely’ on the Victorian bridge after cracks were discovered in its pedestals. It reopened to pedestrians and cyclists last February while works were forced to pause after a boat carrying West Ham United football fans crashed into it in December 2023.
The estimated repair costs have now ballooned to £250,000,000. Ms Anderson told the BBC News Local Democracy Reporting Service that if the last government had started and ‘they’d got on with it six years ago, we could have done it, but everything seems to have slowed down.’.
‘Steel is less available because of the war in Ukraine. There are variables we couldn’t even have imagined six years ago that have come in, so the longer it’s left the harder it seems to get,’ she added. Sarah Olney, a Lib Dem MP for Richmond Park, said the failure to commit to the bridge repairs previously ‘a stain on the former Conservative government’s legacy.’.
