On October 25, 1999, giant jacks successfully raised the Kingston Bridge on the River Clyde by almost two centimetres.
Glasgow was divided, with engineers beside themselves at the enormity of the project happening on their doorsteps, and most ordinary people more concerned with how long the road would be closed.
Nevertheless, there was excitement in the air, as Ian Telford, then engineering manager of Glasgow City Council, summed up.
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“A cheer went up when the bridge was lifted at about 11am on Sunday,” he said. “We can now confirm that it weighs 52,000 tons.”
He added: “There has been a lot of international interest. Delegations have already visited from China, Japan, and Taiwan and representatives of the Norwegian government are coming in November to see how the operation went.”
The £31.5m remedial work was necessary because of structural defects discovered in 1990. Assessments revealed that the main piers holding the bridge would have to be replaced, The bridge had moved more than five centimetres on its bearings from its original position and its central span had dropped by around 30 centimetres.
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The temporary closure also required Scotland’s biggest traffic management operation. Police planned it over a six-month period and more than 200 extra officers were on duty to deal with possible delays. The bridge re-opened 15 hours ahead of schedule,
The Kingston Bridge, which was one of the first stages of the M8, is the centrepiece of Britain’s biggest urban motorway network.
It was opened on June 26, 1970, by the Queen Mother. It took three years to build at a cost of £11 million and when it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2020, it was estimated two billion vehicles had crossed it.
Its span was built nearly 20m (65ft) above the river to enable ships to pass underneath. It was built by consulting engineers WA Fairhurst and Partners, one of the leading civil engineering firms of the period.
“Glasgow’s new Kingston Bridge, which is to carry the city’s Inner Ring road over the river Clyde at Carnoustie Street, is rapidly taking recognisable form,” said our newspaper, on August 29, 1969, pointing out that the picture accompanying the article showed the “complicated lines of approach” on the bridge’s northern side.
Controversy surrounded the demolition of more than 7000 houses to make way for the bridge, and our report at the time of the Queen Mother’s official opening of the bridge said the construction work had also meant the “necessary demolition of some outstanding buildings such as the Grand Hotel and the headquarters of the St Andrew’s Ambulance Association.”
