Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:18 pm on 25 October 2022.
Well, as tempting as it is, Llywydd, to engage in that contribution in the same tone as it was offered, I shall not do that. I think that was a very poorly judged intervention on what is a very serious subject.
There are regular inspections of the bridge to industry standard, far higher than to the normal highway network, which is a risk-based approach. Inspections of the bridge are not risk-based, they are regularly held, and I mentioned the process for that, and it's through that regular inspection that the initial problem was highlighted. Ongoing monitoring work has been going on since then, and it's that ongoing monitoring that has highlighted the potential for further failure, which led us to take immediate action. And as I explained, we could have waited till the end of the weekend and given advance notice that the bridge would be closing on Monday, but, on reflection, we thought that would be imprudent; had something happened, that would have been unforgivable. And given the weight of the advice we were getting from the structural engineers, it was clearly the right thing to do to act immediately, in the full knowledge this would cause distress and inconvenience, which we deeply regret, but we felt this was the responsible thing to do. And if the Member has time to reread the statement I gave, I believe it fairly answers the questions that have been raised, and I regret the way in which she has made her intervention today.