THE long-running saga over the future of Alton station’s Victorian footbridge has reached crisis point.

Determined to save this unique bridge for posterity the Friends of Alton Station have been put on the spot, with just two-and-a-half weeks to produce £130,000 or risk Network Rail ripping it down and disposing of it forever.

According to Friends’ chairman Stephen Lewis, the sudden deadline has come about because Network Rail has to set down a project plan for the bridge removal in February/March next year.

Network Rails’s budgeted cost – thought to be in the region of £250,000 – allows for removal, but not with any special measures in place to preserve the structure for restoration.

Mr Lewis explained: “They are demanding £130,000 ‘extra over’ to their budget to remove the bridge carefully, although they refuse to disclose their figures to substantiate this.”

In a statement, Network Rail said: “We have been working with the Friends of Alton Station since 2015, giving them the opportunity to raise enough money to preserve the old wooden footbridge.

“While we respect their efforts here, we are not able to spend £130,000 of taxpayers’ money to restore the bridge given we have already built a new, fully-accessible bridge next to it and Historic England has confirmed the structure is not historically significant.

“Given the poor state of the bridge, if funds have not been raised by the end of this financial year, it will be demolished.”

But Friends of Alton Station doesn’t want Network Rail to carry out the repair work.

According to group member Pat Lerew, the Friends have a plan of their own, devised with the help of members who are experienced in railway bridge engineering, to flat pack the dismantled bridge and take it away where it will be renovated by volunteers and then returned.

What they have asked Network Rail to do is to dismantle the bridge with care so as to cause the least amount of damage – an exercise that they feel would not justify an additional £130,000.

It is a project that Mrs Lerew claims has support of influential people such as East Hampshire MP Damian Hinds and one which will cost considerably less than the estimated £750,000 Network Rail has quoted for the restoration work.

While they would have welcomed a contribution towards the cost of the restoration work from Network Rail, what the support group really wants is the time to rally financial support and to get the work done.

As such they have asked Network Rail for a breakdown of its costings, which the company says it will do at its next meeting with the Friends on November 6 – but with the deadline looming that, it is feared, will be too late.

Unlike Network Rail, the Friends believe Alton’s heritage footbridge should be saved.

Installed in 1892 by London and South Western Railway, it is now the only surviving example of a wooden railway footbridge anywhere in the UK.

An open bridge, built with lattice sides, the Ladies of Alton, who were really the local branch of the women’s suffrage movement, successfully lobbied London and South Western Railway to have it covered and glazed, making a totally enclosed structure.

Mr Lewis said: “Other contemporary, open-timber footbridges constructed on the nearby Meon Valley line were later removed, while others were replaced by concrete or steel bridges. Ours remained.

“The fact that it survived is largely down to the campaign to have it covered, but it has been poorly maintained for the last few decades and is in need of repair.

“This factor has been used as a reason to demolish it for good, but Friends of Alton Station are more confident than ever that it can be saved.”

While the pressure is on to raise the £130,000, Mr Lewis flags up similar examples of railway projects that managed to attract vast sums to make things possible, most famously the Tornado and now the P2 new-build locomotives built by the A1 Trust in Darlington.

“In Alton’s case, Friends of Alton Station are trying to save a one of a kind timber footbridge, with international importance as the last known Victorian timber footbridge over a working railway.

“Indeed, it was Network Rail themselves who named it the Heritage footbridge.”

In seeking urgent financial support for the footbridge project, Mr Lewis says all donations will be gratefully received via the dedicated Just Giving page, with easy links from the website at friendsofaltonstation.org.uk.