THE Demerara Harbour Bridge which was closed for several hours on Saturday to allow for critical maintenance to be undertaken, was reopened one hour ahead of the projected time.

As a result of the successful completion of the works ahead of time, the facility was reopened at 14:00 hrs to commuters, who during the period of closure had to make alternate arrangement to go about their business.
Meanwhile, General Manager of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation, Mr Rawlston Adams has said that during the springtide period in the first week of November, the DHBC will be changing another of the large pontoons.
The DHBC has already replaced four of its five pontoons, catered for in its 2017 work programme.In July 2018, the Corporation would be observing the 40th anniversary of the Demerara Harbour Bridge.

Adams maintains that there continues to be challenges, including difficulties with some of the panels. “We’re seeing cracks and we’re doing work (on) them, and we’re in discussion to change those panels next year; which would mean that the bridge would have to be shut down for three days in the first quarter. But we’re discussing what would be done.”
Another challenge facing the bridge is the sourcing of parts but Adams has indicated that the DHBC has recently been storing dismantled components from the railway embankment bridges, especially pins and cardboards.

“We want to make sure we harvest all those components that come off those bridges and we use them for our maintenance purposes. We have harvested a couple hundred cardboards which are very important for keeping all the panels and the frames together. The issue is that the quality of cardboards that we would buy is not the same quality as the original, so we prefer to use the original,” Adams explained.