MAINTENANCE budgets for the troubled Twin Sails bridge have been overspent by more than half a million pounds since it first opened, a freedom of information request has revealed.

Despite only setting aside just over £700,000 since opening the bridge in 2012, Poole council spent almost £1.3 million keeping it operational.

A new fault forced its successor, BCP Council, to close the structure at the beginning of August and it is not scheduled to reopen until late autumn.

The freedom of information request, made by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, asked for details of all closures of the bridge and the amount of money the local authority had spent on maintenance.

It listed a total of 63 days when it was either partly or fully inaccessible, although at least ten days were not listed.

It also excluded the ongoing closure, which as of today (November 2) totals 86 days.

The council’s cabinet member for transport, councillor Andy Hadley, said most of the closures were to be expected.

“These dates include occasions when it was only closed overnight or remained open to cyclists and pedestrians,” he said.

“The majority of these closures have been planned and were put in place to enable regular maintenance works to be carried out, which is typical for these types of structure.

“Other closures have been for carrying out test lifts following routine replacement of components or to undertake inspections which cannot be done when the bridge is operational.”

Figures were also provided on how much Poole council had spent on maintenance and repairs – but details for the current financial year were not provided.

In all but one year (2017/18) since the bridge opened the council has overspent against its budget, despite the budget itself rising from £75,000 in 2012/13 to £140,510 last year.

In total, £1,273,622 was spent between the date of the bridge's opening and April this year, although only an estimated £728,040 had been predicted as being needed.

Cllr Hadley added: “The maintenance expenditure and budget is part of an overall budget for all highway structures and covers planned as well as reactive maintenance.

“The costs of unplanned maintenance for the bridges has been covered from within the overall budget for transportation services over the period.’’

No update has been provided on when the bridge is expected to reopen since the original “autumn” forecast was pushed back to “late autumn” in an announcement last month.

It has now been out of action for almost three months.