WATERLOO BRIDGE

Hokitika Guardian, 1 July 1932, Page 2

WATERLOO BRIDGE

PROPOSED DEMOLITION. LONDON, June 27. Considerable controversy has been raging in the English Houses of .Parliament and in the newspapers, in regard to the. London County Council’s proposal -to demolish and replace Waterloo Bridge. When the House of Lords debated the proposal Lord Charnwood said a great many people, not highbrow, or artistic, were very much opposed to the .pulling, down ,of, Waterloo Bridge for reasons apart from financial oitraffic considerations. There was general agreement up to the beauty of the bridge. It was a pnrtieulnriy congruous feature- of the 'surroundings in which it -was placed, The great architect whom it whs intended to employ might design a bridge which in itself would be quite as fine as Rennie’s bridge, but he would be under certain restrictions in regard to construction and design which would not give him a free hand from an architectural point of view., While they could demand of him that he should build a very beautiful bridge it could not possibly be demanded of him that be should build an equally beautiful foreground. Before we parted with a valued feature of the capital of the Empire we ought to be quite sure 111 at we were .doing something cf real practical utility, and doing it at a reasonable cost.

The * approximate estimated cost of removing the old bridge and building a new one was £1,295,000, but he thought that these figures needed careful reconsideration 1 . He had received the following estimate from a competent engineer: For destroying the old bridge, £550,000; for constructing a new temporary bridge, £400,000* for taking down the present temporary bridge, £50,000; and for the building of the new bridge, £l,360,000.