“There is no immediate solution to get the bridge in a sufficient state to re-open” Moray Council on the Collapsed Spey Viaduct 15/12/25
by kiradax
“There is no immediate solution to get the bridge in a sufficient state to re-open” Moray Council on the Collapsed Spey Viaduct 15/12/25
by kiradax
7 comments
Moray Council is placing a whole bunch of road bridges into Managed Decline so this bridge will also face the same fate of being ignored.
Tl;dr – the bridge failed due to the river washing away its footing. It was inspected two years ago and this happened in the time since. It’s completely broken, requires hugely specialist work to put back together (working under fast-flowing water) and is a listed structure to boot, so an extra layer of bureaucracy.
It’s not coming back anytime soon.
>**Q4. How long will the bridge be closed for?**
>**There is no immediate solution to get the bridge in a sufficient state to re-open.** Specialist contractors will need to be brought in for the clean-up operation and to determine next steps. As the bridge spans the fastest flowing river in Scotland, accessing the underwater areas is dangerous and requires specialist contractors and equipment. **The initial work taking place will be dependent on availability of resources and funding.**
>**Q5. What is the future of the bridge?**
>Any work to prepare options for the future of the bridge, potentially repair or replace, will begin in the new year. **Any work on the bridge will also be subject to available finances.**
>The bridge is a listed structure so relevant partners and statutory bodies, such as the Council’s Planning service, are being updated alongside Building Standards being notified of a dangerous structure.
tl;dr – not in your lifetime.
> At the time of the last scour report, by a specialist contractor in 2023, there was no evidence of scour.
Yeah, in the longer thread the other day about the collapse, people found some older pictures and videos, the section that’s collapsed was *dry land* in 2023.
> It appears that over the last year the river flow path has changed, which may have contributed to a change of impact on the piers.
Also in the previous thread, pictures from googlemaps from people cycling over the bridge in *November* the section which has collapsed had trees on *both sides*.
The river channel looks like it has moved by several metres in a very short timescale.
> Can 39 Engineer Regiment at Kinloss rebuild it or replace it?
> This is not an immediate solution but may be considered further if appropriate.
I’m sure the Engineers would love to tackle such a complex bridging problem, but there’s the question of what they’d replace it with. Town where I grew up, the Engineers built a Bailey Bridge in the 1970s, that was intended as a “temporary” measure, and was only replaced in 2010.
Overall it would require a lot of complex engineering works to make something stable, on a changeable floodplain on the fastest river in Scotland, so it’d be really expensive, and with council budgets as they are, I’m not sure that rebuilding a recreational footbridge is likely to happen at all.
Let’s see how money will be spent in “studies”, while nothing is done or built.Â
It’s times like this that we need to accept the passing of time, build a spanking new bridge fit for purpose and put up a plaque at each side showing what the bridge used to look like
It does look pretty thoroughly fucked, to be fair to Moray Council. It’ll be a major job getting it back up again.
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