Six weeks of traffic chaos

London motorists have been warned to expect severe disruption in the New Year as Tower Bridge shuts for its first major maintenance operation since 1974.

The bridge will shut from midnight on 6 January to midnight on 16 February bringing the prospect of major traffic jams in the City and Southwark areas.

About 41,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day, most of which will be forced to seek alternative routes, causing traffic bottlenecks in other parts of the capital.

An AA Roadwatch spokeswoman said: "This will cause problems in Southwark, Islington, Tower Hamlets and the City. Motorists will want to use the Rotherhithe Tunnel or London Bridge, but will inevitably find them busy. Hopefully disruption will diminish after four or five days once people remember to avoid the area."

The Corporation insists that after nearly 30 years of continuous operation the maintenance is "essential". The hydraulics that work the bascules - the bridge's twin 1,000-tonne opening sections - will be refitted, while the old control room, complete with wooden instrument panel, will make way for hi-tech computer equipment.

"We need to replace the hydraulics and pumps that enable the bridge to operate, and the machinery that puts the power into the lift," said Andrew Downes, the corporation's principal engineer.

"The current control room looks like a 1950s TV studio. We will be putting in a new control system to monitor what is going on and spot faults in advance."

Yet, as a heavy sigh goes up among the capital's motorists at the prospect of yet more traffic jams, they might bear in mind that the bridge is, according to many, an infinitely superior example of engineering to many of the vehicles it carries.

Opened in 1894, when London was still largely coach-and-horse drawn, its unique method of handling ships over 30 feet tall was a symbolic testimony to the then primacy of seafaring in the British economy.

In its first year, the three 22-tonne Metropolitan Vickers brass steam engines raised and lowered the bridge 6,160 times, and, in 80 subsequent years of operation, they never failed once.

When they were replaced with the current electric engines in 1974, one engine was bought by north London car dealer Leslie Johnston, who put it in his showroom as a protest against the cheap Japanese cars then coming into the UK. He explained at the time: "When someone walks in saying Datsuns and Toyotas are wonderful, I will say, 'here's a bit of engineering still going after 80 years'."

The bridge is subject to other quirky stories. As recently as 1981, pedestrians were still banned under the terms of a request from the Navy, which feared prostitutes would use it to lure newly arriving sailors.

And the company that built the machinery now being replaced has gone. It now has to be made to order a year in advance from manufacturers in Bedfordshire.