Who's that trip trapping over MY bridge!?
7th October 2026
If you go down to the woods today………you're in for a surprise. We like a bit of a challenge here at Isis Facility Services and when we received a call asking if we would be interested in looking at renovating a pedestrian bridge, in desperate need of some TLC, in the middle of a local beauty spot on the edge of Throckley, we could not resist. Throckley and Wallbottle Dene is a wooded valley through which the Newburn flows and it enters the River Tyne about 3 miles downstream. A real hidden gem if you are ever looking for weekend stroll.
The bridge is approached via footpath and steps leading from a housing estate down the valley sides and across a meadow of wild flowers, then follow the path for about 3/4 of a mile, you will come to footbridge which spans the Newburn. On our initial site visit, it became apparent that this was not a simple chip and paint job as originally thought. The approach to the work site was going to be a bit of a daily challenge, approx a mile and a half on foot, carrying all of your equipment and tools. The most obvious issue though was the Newburn itself, and the potential environmental impact on the watercourse once we started chipping and grinding layers of dirt, flaked paint and rust etc. which could not be allowed to enter the water course under any circumstances. To overcome this, a dam or a bund had to be built just upstream of the bridge, and the flow of water had to be over-pumped down stream from the work site. The stream bed was then lined with a plastic membrane, this was a daily operation for the duration of the works and worked with great success with no issues reported.
Within two days we had the steel H beams supporting the deck of the bridge completely stripped and ready to receive the first of 2 coats of primer. With twenty six hours curing time between coats it was pretty crucial the weather held if we were to complete in the narrow time window we'd negotiated.
Thankfully, we were blessed by the weather during operations and thanks to the hard work, professionalism and dedication to delivering another one-off specialist projects such as this, our team delivered the completed project not only to the client’s satisfaction but 5 days ahead of programme.