Friday's photos by David Harrison
HUGE crowds have celebrated the reopening of Tadcaster Bridge, just over 13 months after it partially collapsed in the wake of severe flooding.
Hundreds of schoolchildren, Selby and Ainsty MP Nigel Adams and Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid led a procession across the bridge over the River Wharfe on Friday afternoon, following the completion of a £4.3 million reconstruction and widening project by North Yorkshire County Council.
Residents cheered as St Joseph's RC Primary School pupil Lydia Jackson cut a ribbon, and councillors told of their joy as the divided communities of east and west Tadcaster were finally reconnected, with motorists able to drive from one side of the River Wharfe to the other without a lengthy detour via the A64 and businesses regaining vital passing trade.
Town councillors said disabled people using wheelchairs, and parents with prams and pushchairs, would particularly benefit from the widening work carried out as part of the project.
"It's absolutely fantastic for the future generations of Tadcaster," said the town's deputy mayor Richard Sweeting, saying the difficulties faced by the town had engendered a wonderful community spirit.
Town councillor Kirsty Perkins said: "I am absolutely over the moon - chuffed to bits. I was born here and lived here all my life and have never experienced anything like it was when we came over the bridge - there was so much noise and excitement."
Mr Adams praised the council and contractors for their work in re-building the bridge, and urged people from outside Tadcaster, who might have been deterred from visiting the town by the closed bridge, to return.
The council said the bridge collapsed on December 29, 2015, because its central piers were undermined by the ferocity of the river flow, with over 650 tonnes of water every second hitting the structure.
Up to 45 workers were on site in a single day at the peak of the project, and 60,000 hours were worked, with 1,342 new stones weighing 1,000 tonnes dug from a quarry near Doncaster to match existing stones for strength, colour, texture, density and porosity.
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