Hammersmith Bridge will be closed to ALL traffic for the busy Bank Holiday weekend.

For 10 days police cars, ambulances, and buses will be barred from using the crossing.

The closure is for essential repair and strengthening work.

But it could not have come at a worse time, with thousands of cars forced to find alternative routes on one of the busiest periods of the year.

The ban starts at noon today, Thursday. And the bridge will not reopen until 6am on Monday, August 31, to emergency vehicles and public transport.

Some contingency plans have been made, however.

A free shuttle bus will run from Hammersmith bus station to the north side of the bridge. Passengers can then walk across the bridge to catch buses. Barnes Councillor Katie Gent said works had originally been planned for an earlier date, but had to be changed.

She explained 5,000 leaflets had been distributed warning people of the provisional dates, and that warning of the change had come late.

Buses

But she added: "I do agree this work should be done in the summer holidays - they've got to do it some time."

The bridge's suspension chains are being jacked up and the existing steel roller bearing replaced with a fexible plastic bearing.

* Buses 33, 209 and R69 terminate from the south at Castelnau Boileau Arms; 72 will be diverted to run via Putney Bridge.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.