The new £600 million Mersey Gateway Bridge development is taking shape.

Work on the 1,000-tonne structure is drawing to a close and Merseylink, the construction consortium building the new bridge, has revealed the project could open to traffic as early as mid-September and no later than mid-October, weather permitting.

The new opening date date follows a re-assessment of the construction programme by Merseylink, which has spent three-and-a-half-year years delivering the multi-million pound project.

The bridge is the centrepiece of the Mersey Gateway Project, which covers around nine kilometres of road improvements and a series of major new junctions running throughout Runcorn and Widnes.

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Hugh O'Connor, General Manager of Merseylink, said: "All along we said we'd be opening in autumn 2017 and it is great to be able to keep that promise. We'll update everyone with a firmer date as we get closer to opening but we're confident that we will open by mid-October at the latest. Much of our final work is weather dependent, but we will be able to give a definitive date around five days ahead of opening."

Council Leader Rob Polhill added: "This is excellent news – the contractors and all involved in the construction effort are doing a phenomenal job to deliver this bridge on time. The Mersey Gateway Project is an incredible feat of engineering and will be a landmark for our region for years to come."

After the bridge opens, a year's worth of landscaping and other works to be finished will be carried out, including the removal of the temporary trestle bridge across the river, the planting of trees and shrubs along the route and the reinstatement of the saltmarsh on both sides of the river.

(LM)