Building bridges in North County Council

A moment of disaster

On 29 December 2015, Tadcaster Bridge collapsed during flooding caused by Storm Eva.

In that moment, as a large section of the 300-year-old listed structure fell into the River Wharfe, the historic brewery town of Tadcaster was split in half, the east and west separated. Families were divided. Suddenly, people could not easily travel from their homes to their work or to shops or to see their GP.

We knew we had to reunite the community and we acted immediately.

A shuttle bus to take passengers from one side of the River Wharfe to the other was put in place.

Within days, improvements had been made to a viaduct across the Wharfe to maintain a pedestrian crossing.

Before long a new temporary footbridge was erected to give the people of Tadcaster a proper pedestrian crossing.

And all this time plans were taking shape to repair – and even improve – the devastated road bridge.

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A single voice of truth

Media interest, locally and nationally, was In the light of an apparent lack of action “In December 2015, my constituency suffered huge from the moment of the collapse and on the ground, it was easy for rumours to terrible flooding, especially in the town of throughout the rebuilding. We did everything start and misunderstandings to arise. Tadcaster. The damage became worse when you would expect: regular press releases, the bridge collapsed, separating the town . We knew we had to make sure that North sometimes on an almost daily basis; dozens Thankfully, the bridge will be reopened, Yorkshire County Council was the one of television and radio interviews; on-going hopefully this week. Will the Prime Minister trusted source of the facts. We had to be social media and website updates. join me in thanking all those who were seen to be transparent and we had to keep involved in the restoration of the bridge But in a self-contained, tightly people up to date. Conventional channels and, most importantly, the residents of knit community like Tadcaster we of communication would not be enough. Tadcaster, who have had a terrible year? ” knew we needed to do more. This called for innovative thinking to put Nigel Adams, MP for and Ainsty Work on the rebuilding project was moving in place communication channels where quickly, with every agency pulling out all the and when the public wanted them. stops, but initially there was not a lot of activity We had to take our communications to be seen on the bridge. Before the practical to the heart of the community. repairs could start, we needed to survey the “I am happy to join my Honorable Friend in damage, establish why it happened, design commending and thanking not only all those improvements, gain funding for repairs and who worked so hard to restore the bridge at for widening the bridge to improve pedestrian Tadcaster, but the people of Tadcaster, who access, and gain the required planning have had to put up with disruption and permission and Environment Agency approval. inconvenience for such a long time. I am sure In fact, under normal circumstances a project that those people will all welcome the return of this nature would have taken twice as long, of the bridge, and we commend all those who but when it’s your town that’s split in half have ensured that that has happened. ” the repairs can’t happen quickly enough. The Prime Minister

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A cabin by the bridge

First, we opened our Comms Cabin. This is a cabin on the edge of the bridge reconstruction site in the centre of Tadcaster. The cabin was open to the public three days a week, when our highways customer communications officer for would work from the cabin and be available to speak to any member of the public that wanted to drop in, answering questions, responding to comments and offering updates.

In the cabin, people could also examine plans and drawings for the new, improved bridge, along with photographs showing progress that could not be seen from outside. Four of the original piles that were removed from the bridge’s central pier were also on show in the cabin.

“This is a positive post, we can all see the end is in sight ”

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Putting ourselves in the shop window

At the same time as we opened our Comms Cabin, we put in place a rolling communications channel that residents on either side of the bridge could check in with at any time.

A print shop on the west side of the river and a carpet shop on the east side kindly allowed us to install televisions in their windows. On these screens, we linked in to the shops’ own wi fi to broadcast slides detailing our progress on the bridge reconstruction in words and pictures. The slides ran on a loop and were updated regularly. The latest slide show can be seen here: http://www. northyorks.gov.uk/recruitment/tadjan17.htm

Installing the slide shows involved devising some simple Raspberry Pi technology that could be plugged into the televisions. See how we went about this here: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=HqMaOoVerfg&t=3s

5 North Yorkshire County Council Making friends on social media

Tadcaster residents have set up several Facebook groups – Tadcaster Flood Action Group, Friends of Tadcaster Bridge, Tadcaster Citizen – which between them reach about 5,500 people. We realised how important they would be in distributing the facts to the townspeople, so throughout the process we have shared our regular social media posts with them. In addition, we have worked with them, providing updates for use on their pages alongside the photos and videos they have taken of the work progressing.

“Thanks for keeping everyone up to date on the progress, much appreciated”

6 Building bridges in Tadcaster Taking our message to the people

The reach and immediacy of social media is very useful, but there’s nothing like meeting people face to face. We found several ways to do this.

Our partners at Selby District Council run Community Engagement Forums around the district at which members of the public can raise concerns or comment on their local services. We attended the drop-in surgery before each forum meeting to update residents on the work and answer their questions.

We also took a stand to the annual Tadcaster Carnival in September and to the Tadcaster Flood Fair, organised by Tadcaster Flood Action Group, in October, which gave us more opportunities to share the plans, designs and updates with members of the public and answer their questions. It also gave us a chance to share something of the history of the bridge, including a core sample that suggested a wooden bridge may have existed on the site before the current structure.

“We would like to just take this opportunity to thank you and the many people within your team for the hard work and compassion that you have shown Tadcaster over the last 13months. At times we understand that it has been a very difficult task but you have really rebuilt Tadcaster.”

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The face of the council What we Right from the start, our community language they understand, cutting through engagement over Tadcaster Bridge had any technical terminology. And if a visitor have learned a face. That was our highways customer did have a technical question, Sharon had communications officer for Selby district, the bridges team and the contractors on Using methods of communication that take Sharon Fox. site to provide the facts and figures. engagement right to the heart of a community works. We intend to use channels such as the Comms Sharon had a number of highly professional She also liaised with the Tadcaster Cabin and the onsite slide-show progress reports teams to support her – from colleagues Facebook groups and fronted the face-to- in major projects in future. In fact, the first in which in the area highways office, to the bridges face engagement at the carnival, flood fair they will be used is just a couple of months away. team, the communications and digital and community engagement forums. This is a 20-week project to maintain and improve a teams and the contractors – but for most All this activity helped us to ensure the bridge at Cawood, again in Selby district, that requires residents with a question about the bridge, residents of Tadcaster felt they knew the bridge to be closed during the summer school Sharon was the first person they saw. how work on the bridge was progressing holidays. We’re already working closely with the parish From immediately after the bridge’s collapse, while dispelling any misinformation that council and villagers and are certain that our innovative Sharon was out and about in Tadcaster. She occasionally spread in the town. methods of communication will create even closer regularly rode the shuttle bus that we put in cohesion between the council and the community. Thirteen months after the collapse of Tadcaster place to transport people from one side of the Bridge, a stronger, wider rebuilt bridge river to the other, chatting to passengers about reopened on 3 February. The residents of what had caused the damage – scouring of the Tadcaster were at the centre of that reopening, riverbed – and what we were doing about it. just as they had been at the centre of the She worked from the Comms Cabin, where whole reconstruction, thanks to the innovative she provided information, clarification and approaches taken in our determination to reassurance to the people of Tadcaster. involve them in the process from start to finish. Sharon is a communications officer, not It is their bridge and their town and we had a bridge engineer, but that has been to only one aim: making both whole again. her advantage. She talks to people in a

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