Royal Border Bridge plan lights up tourism hopes

Jan 4 2010 by David Black, The Journal

AMBITIOUS plans to light up an iconic railway bridge will help attract more tourists and their vital spending power to a Northumberland town, it has been claimed.

The aim is to give Berwick’s 28-arch Royal Border Bridge, which was opened by Queen Victoria in 1850, a night-time illumination scheme to help commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of its designer, rail engineer Robert Stephenson.

Now county councillors are being recommended to formally support the “exciting” project by agreeing up to £10,000 in revenue funding.

The initiative could also include council funding for the restoration of failed lighting on the town’s 1928 New Bridge, which has been the subject of much local dissatisfaction and calls for action.

The Royal Border Bridge, carries the East Coast Main Line over the River Tweed from Berwick to Tweedmouth.

The permanent illumination scheme was drawn up by a Berwick History Society working group and a Glasgow-based firm of architects.

It involves using energy-efficient LED-based lights to illuminate the underside of the 28 arches, with the lights changing colour to follow trains crossing the structure at night.