A city bridge at the centre of a dispute over its long-term future is to be shut so £20,000 of repair work can be done.
Norwich's Carrow Bridge will be closed to traffic for two nights next week so work to fix its timber decking can be carried out by Norfolk County Council.
But County Hall and the Broads Authority remain at loggerheads over what should happen to the bridge, which is almost 100 years old, in the years ahead.
Norfolk County Council had intended to spend £150,000 this summer to fix Carrow Bridge, which can lift to allow vessels to pass on the River Wensum beneath it, into place.
The council's Conservative cabinet agreed to make the money available to fix the bridge into place for a temporary period of five years.
The council's thinking was that welding it in place would save on maintenance costs because deck panels would not have to be fixed so often, after being shaken loose by traffic.
The council had considered spending more than £2m for a repair scheme to allow the bridge to keep lifting, which would have shut the bridge to traffic for three months, but decided against that.
But it triggered opposition from the Broads Authority, because section 61 of the Norwich Corporation Act 1920 states the bridge must be able to open to allow vessels to pass to access the port of Norwich.
The authority, which would have had to grant the council a licence for the work, had said it would be "totally unacceptable" to weld the bridge shut.
John Packman, chief executive of the Broads Authority, said, in March last year: "The fact that there have been a very limited number of times when the bridge has been lifted for boats in recent years does not reflect the demand for larger boats to access the port of Norwich."
The council's welding shut plan was put on hold and, since then, talks have been continuing about what should happen.
In the meantime, the council is spending £20,000 to repair the timber decking and surfacing on the bridge.
The road over the bridge will be closed to all vehicles while the work is carried out and for a short time once the repairs have been completed to allow for the surface to dry and set.
The road will, weather permitting, be shut from 7pm on Friday, September 9 until 7am on Saturday, September 10 and from 7pm on Saturday, September 10 until 7am on Sunday, September 11.
Pedestrians will still be able to cross the bridge and Norwich City do not have a Carrow Road game that weekend.
HISTORY OF CARROW BRIDGE
The current Carrow Bridge was opened in 1923 by Edward, then the Prince of Wales.
His abdication as king 13 years later sparked a constitutional crisis.
Construction on the bridge had begun in 1920, through the unemployed relief work scheme, which was set up in the aftermath of the First World War.
The current bridge replaced one which was a few hundred feet further downstream, which linked Carrow Hill to the north-eastern end of Carrow Road.
That iron bascule bridge had been built in 1833, replacing one - probably made of wood - which had been constructed in 1810.
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