By Kirsten Elliott

Bath and North East Somerset Council says that one challenge it faces at Victoria Bridge is that it is a "very old structure", as if that is in some way an excuse for its present sorry state.

The railway line from Paddington to Bristol runs happily over bridges of similar vintage, and there are even older bridges and aqueducts on our canal system. Unlike this one, they have been properly maintained.

There seems little doubt that B&NES thought that Crest Nicholson would ride to the rescue of the bridge. Early documents promised that as a "key component of this landmark contemporary scheme" there would be "two new bridges and the restoration of the listed Victoria Bridge".

A planning document of March 2008, listing developer contributions, promised a "strengthened and enhanced Victoria Bridge and a potential new pedestrian and cycle bridge to Norfolk Crescent".

However, the council's website now says, reprovingly: "It would be unlawful for the council to attempt to secure money through a Section 106 agreement for the structural repair of the bridge as it was a pre-existing part of the highway network."

Silly old us for believing what we were told.

Now the bridge has deteriorated quite suddenly. Dealing as I do with old buildings, I can believe it. Neglect something for long enough, let decay get a hold – it will collapse quite fast.

But why has this happened?

It's clear that B&NES has not subjected the bridge to adequate inspections. According to what I have been sent after a Freedom of Information Act request, an inspection in 2007 detected no defects. This is odd, because in 2009, a report by Robin Griffiths for a conference at the University of Bath mentioned that in the past one of the chains had failed. This would suggest, that, given it is made of wrought iron, in-depth checks would be an idea.

In October 2010, the bridge was found to be "under strength for pedestrian crowd loading", and the report adds that "for the safety of the public", hoardings were erected.

Why massive hoardings were felt necessary remains unexplained, but the council insists this was on expert advice. Since the Griffiths report goes on at some length about the strain caused by the wind tunnel effect, and how Dredge's design minimised this, you might have thought that someone would have asked themselves if this was a good idea – but they didn't.

However, once the hoardings were no longer "required", they were removed "to reduce the dead load on the existing structure".

In other words, the bridge is not strong enough to take pedestrians so we'll put even more load on it by adding hoardings, even though we know that is bad for it.

In November, it occurred to B&NES that the paint might be hiding something, and so it proved. But how many supports have failed? If you believe the website, there was "further deterioration of one of the central hangers". This, we are told, "is a serious issue as any weakness in the central area of the bridge increases the risk to the structure". As the bridge is a double cantilever, there should be virtually no strain on the centre chains at all. However, the response I have had tells me that nine out of ten hangers had failed – a rather different story.

Two further points occur to me. The Griffiths report stated how important the foundations on the south side were to the whole structure. This is exactly where Crest has been happily digging about.

Finally, the website assures you that B&NES has been liaising with English Heritage over the restoration. In that case, why didn't they remove all the ivy and buddleia from the arches on each side, when EH asked them to do so?

Victoria Bridge should be a potent symbol of Bath's creativity – instead it proves just how incompetent B&NES can be.

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