A busy bridge has reopened after its third closure due to a defect in a month
The Sheppey Crossing was initially closed in both directions at around 4.15pm today (June 18) – only two days after the carriageway heading off the Island was fully reopened.
While the Sheppy-bound carriageway quickly reopened, all lanes of the Sittingbourne-bound side remained off limits until 7pm after structural engineers had assessed it.
Kent County Council’s highways teams said the closure was due to an “infrastructure bridge defect”.
A spokesman for National Highways confirmed the crossing had been shut by Kent Police, and contractors were being sent to “assess the situation”.
Commenting on social media, one driver said: “Was stuck as just going off the island when they closed it – started moving after about 20mins but now completely closed.”
Other comments warned of the impact on traffic across the Island.
One said: “Bridge closed … take the old bridge!!! Traffic queued back to Eastchurch.”
Another added: “The traffic was queued back to Brambledown when I went the other way.”
Congestion built up in the area, including along Lower Road and Queenborough Road, and back to the Morrisons.
Traffic was diverted via the Kingsferry Bridge, and people were told to allow extra time for their journey.
It comes just two days after the bridge, which is used by around 34,000 vehicles every day, fully reopened following emergency repairs to a faulty joint on the Sittingbourne-bound carriageway.
Before that, the Sheppey-bound lanes were shut for several weeks for the same reason.
On May 22, National Highways closed the bridge to traffic coming onto the Island, which caused chaos, with drivers stuck for hours as temperatures soared.
A lane was reopened the following day but it said full repairs were expected to take at least three months and that “due to the complexity of the structure”, the replacement bridge joint would need to be specially designed and manufactured to fit.
However, on June 8, it said all lanes were open and that a full repair had been undertaken.
