CEREDIGION has more than 650 bridges on its highways with costs of repairs and maintenance met by the county council.

A recent report into the current state of the county’s bridges was discussed at a recent thriving communities overview and scrutiny committee with the resulting recommendation that the Welsh Government be contacted with a view to taking over more roads.

The committee’s recommendation that “cabinet makes a representation to Welsh Government to move forward with plans to consider designating further roads within the county of Ceredigion as trunk roads” was approved.

If the county’s bridges all needed replacing it would cost millions of pounds.

Council leader Cllr Ellen ap Gwynn said at cabinet: “They have said for quite a while now that they are going to move the route of the A487 and the A486 would be adopted but it hasn’t happened yet.”

Cllr Dafydd Edwards said the scrutiny report “raised an interesting point” that many of the county’s bridges are old and “coming to the end of their life.”

“In the future we’re going to have to repair many of those bridges and I’m not sure where the money is going to come from for that, but I suppose we have go to cross that bridge when we come to it,” he added.

The report states that Ceredigion council is responsible for more than 2,265km of carriageway, 211km of footways, 668 bridges (out of which 27 are listed bridges), nine footbridges, 34 public footbridges, 182 retaining walls, 153 culverts and 6,720 street lights with a combined gross replacement value of over £1,600 million.

Cabinet agreed with scrutiny’s recommendation that the Welsh Government be contacted again about the situation.