The bridge is supposed to lift up, but can’t because of the padlocks![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_TCBR180825PeroBRI_02jpeg.jpg\")
A general view of Pero’s Bridge in Bristol city centre, at lunchtime on August 18, the day council workers began the process of cutting off and removing hundreds of ‘lovelocks’, padlocks which are causing a weight problem on the bridge(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n
Work has begun to remove three tonnes of \u2018lovelocks\u2019 – padlocks locked onto the rails – on a Bristol footbridge. Council officials began removing the locks first thing on Monday morning, although had stopped for a break by lunchtime with only a fraction of the locks removed.<\/p>\n
Bristol City Council<\/a> announced back in June this work would happen at Pero\u2019s Bridge<\/a>, which connects Narrow Quay with Bordeaux Quay across St Augustine\u2019s Reach, because they feared the locks were getting too heavy for the bridge.<\/p>\n The council called on anyone who wanted to retrieve their locks<\/a> on Pero\u2019s Bridge to do so, before work began, and in June pledged that this work would be done before the Harbour Festival on the third week of July.<\/p>\n But that didn\u2019t happen, and now, a month later, council workers have been spotted this morning, Monday, August 18, taking bolt cutters to the padlocks on the bridge. There are hundreds of locks on the bridge, and one council chief said the weight of the extra metal was three tonnes<\/a> – although this has not been verified.<\/p>\n Pero\u2019s Bridge does lift up – the \u2018horns\u2019 are counterweights that allow the central part of the pedestrian bridge to lift up and allow taller boats to go further up St Augustine\u2019s Reach to the Cascade Steps.<\/p>\n But at the moment, the council\u2019s director of \u2018management of place\u2019, Patsy Mellor, told councillors it couldn\u2019t be lifted<\/a> because of the weight of the locks. \u201cWe have got a \u2018no lift\u2019 notice on Pero\u2019s Bridge due to the weight of the locks,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s three tonnes, the estimated weight of the locks.\u201d<\/p>\n “The team is working on a solution where we can place the locks in a nearby structure of some sort. They have to be removed before the Harbour Festival, so it\u2019ll happen quite quickly,\u201d she said back in June.<\/p>\n Pero\u2019s Bridge is the newest bridge across the water in Bristol – it was built in 1999 and named after Pero Jones, who was one of the few enslaved African people who made the third leg<\/a> of the notorious \u2018triangular trade\u2019 which went from Bristol to West Africa, on to the Caribbean and North America, then back to Bristol.<\/p>\n He came back as a servant for the Pinney family – who had sugar plantations with slaves on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean. The house where they and Pero lived is now Bristol\u2019s Georgian House museum, off Park Street.<\/p>\n READ MORE: The bridge in the city centre of Bristol with links to the slave trade<\/a>READ MORE: Three tonnes of \u2018love locks\u2019 on iconic Bristol footbridge to be removed<\/a><\/p>\n The bridge connects Queen Square and Narrow Quay on the eastern side of St Augustine\u2019s Reach with what was then the new regeneration development of the harbourside and Millennium Square – with the bridge leading to the coincidentally-named Loverose Way, the pedestrian street from the bridge to Millennium Square and Anchor Square.<\/p>\n In 2023, a campaign was started to ask the council to remove the \u2018lovelocks\u2019 with the message that it wasn\u2019t appropriate to place padlocks on a bridge named in honour of an enslaved man. The council didn\u2019t take action then, but are doing so now because of structural concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bridge is supposed to lift up, but can’t because of the padlocksA general view of Pero’s Bridge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,799,3893,748,393,4884,800,4729,14995,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-355081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-city-centre","10":"tag-bristol-city-council","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-harbourside","15":"tag-museums","16":"tag-sailing","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115051804993922528","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Love](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250625_213851.jpg\")
Love locks on Pero’s Bridge(Image: Alex Seabrook)<\/p>\n