Work starts on National Trust Lode Bridge
WORK on constructing a bridge over Reach Lode has officially begun under plans by the National Trust to develop a new public access route in the area.
The new crossing is part of a new 14.5km access route which will be called Lodes Way, after the area's historic local waterways, and will link Wicken Fen, Anglesey Abbey and Bottisham.
Funded by a grant from sustainable transport charity Sustrans, the bridge has been designed to blend into the surrounding landscape with sloping ramps providing easy access for walkers, cyclists and horse riders.
The excavation of clay to form the ramps will enable two wildlife ponds to also be created.
It is hoped Lodes Way, which should be completed within the next three years, will enhance links to local villages at Upware, Wicken, Burwell, the Swaffhams, Lode, Quy and Bottisham as well as creating a number of circular routes and trails for residents and visitors to enjoy and explore the countryside.
The Trust is developing the scheme as part of its Wicken Fen Vision project, a 100 year plan to create a landscape scale nature reserve and green lung for Cambridgeshire and the East of England.
Campaigner Geoffrey Woollard, a Swaffham Prior parish councillor and the independent parliamentary candidate for south east Cambridgeshire, who is against the Wicken Fen Vision plans, said: "I very much regret that the huge bridge is now being constructed over the lovely and peaceful Reach Lode.
"The bridge structure is to be some 600ft long and I now know that plans are being drawn up for an even huger bridge over Burwell Lode.
"I've seen the plans and they are enormous and I am going to go into battle at the appropriate time regarding the plans for the bridge over Burwell Lode."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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