Tower Bridge set to close for Olympics lights work

Tower Bridge will be closed to traffic this weekend as work starts on a new LED lighting system that is being installed for the Olympics.

The project will see the bridge's gothic turrets, aerial walkway and suspension chains bathed in colour from the energy efficient lights.

Officials will close the bridge to traffic from 11 tonight so that scaffolding can be put up and will reopen it at 5am on Monday.

The lighting system is being designed by Citelum, the firm behind flood-lighting Egypt's Valley of the Kings, the Petronas Tower in Kuala Lumpur and the Eiffel Tower. The intensity of light, as well as the colours, will be able to be varied, meaning it could be spectacularly lit up in the colours of the Union flag during the Games. Once work is completed in March, energy consumption from lighting the bridge will be cut by up to 40 per cent.

The makeover, which follows repainting work, will be funded at no cost to the taxpayer by energy firms EDF and GE and the bridge's owner, the City of London Corporation.

During this weekend's closure pedestrians will still be able to use the footbridge but traffic and cyclists will be diverted via the Rotherhithe Tunnel and Southwark Bridge.