There won’t be any meetings, or consultations, it’s Network Rails bridge and it’s their responsibility to clean it of this graffiti. From Oct, I believe councils will be able to use the new anti-social behaviour laws, to serve notices on an organisations like Network Rail, requiring them to fix such issues within a set timescale. The bridge is their property and the council cannot do any work on it. Apart from the cost to the taxpayers of South Holland, if the council damaged a structure, or building whilst trying to clean it up, the taxpayers would have to pick up the bill for the repairs.

You’re right, it is an awful bridge and totally inadequate for connecting our side of Spalding with the town centre. We told Network Rail that it would a major error to put a solid sided walkway in place, as it would give the graffiti yobs a blank canvas. We also told them that it needed ramps, so that the disabled could use it safely. Sadly, they had a secondhand bridge from Aylesbury to get shot of. Despite refusing them planning permission to install it, the planning inspector approved the application and this is the result. I said it then and I’ll say it now, shame on you Network Rail.

As an aside, despite promising to resolve one of our other concerns, Network Rail have still failed to install protective mesh, to stop objects being thrown from the bridge into a nearby garden of a house with young children