Bike bridge praised by architects

The design of a bridge on a Cornish green route has won Sustrans the recognition of top international architects.

The Architectural Review magazine’s annual Awards for Emerging Architecture competition presented Sustrans with a ‘highly commended’ for the William Cookworthy Bridge near St Austell, at a ceremony at the London headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

An international jury assessed hundreds of entries to find three award winners, seven high commendations, six commended schemes and eight honourable mentions in this, the seventh annual awards celebrating the work of young architects.

Sustrans’ engineer Simon Ballantine drew up the structural design for the 25 metre bridge named in honour of the 300th anniversary of the founder of Cornwall’s China Clay industry, working alongside architect David Sheppard.

The 30-ton steel bridge allows Sustrans’ Clay Trails route to cross the Bodmin road.

Special low-corrosion steel was used for the span of the bridge, this low-maintenance material is designed to be left unpainted and will weather to a rich red patina.

The £350,000 project also used 10,000 tons of quarry waste from a nearby clay works to form the approach bounded by a balustrade of massive granite blocks

The Architectural Review judges described the bridge as an: ‘elegant feat of engineering in the best British tradition’.

The Clay Trails project is a £1,200,000 scheme managed by Sustrans to create a network of paths exploring the former China Clay workings above St Austell. The 12 miles of trails give car-free access to the Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum and to the Eden Project all from St Austell railway station.

“I am delighted that a bridge designed in-house here at Sustrans has received such prestigious recognition,” said Sustrans’ technical director Simon Talbot-Ponsonby.

http://www.sustrans.org.uk