manager at Norwegian Talc at Knarrevik. The plant had large costs freighting their products across the sound on the Alvøy–Brattholmen Ferry. In 1958, he took the initiative to conduct a traffic count, which along with estimates of increased traffic from other places that had replaced a ferry with a bridge, would give estimates for the revenue from tolls. Norwegian Talc also paid for a draft plan for a bridge. In 1959, Iversen presented an estimate that a bridge would cost NOK 15.5 million, and on 19 December 1959, the council voted unanimously to recommend that a committee be established to continue work on the bridge plans. In 1960, the bridge was included in the road plan for Hordaland. There were also some plans for the future which would remove the last ferries within the Sotra and Øygarden archipelagos, meaning that the entire twin archipelago would have ferry-free access to the mainland, should the Sotra Bridge be built. The plans had been spurred by a large decrease in fishing during the late 1950s, and the need for increased tax revenue from new industries. The framework for the plan started in 1961 with the creation of an inter-municipal cooperation, which in 1964 resulted in the merger of the municipalities of Hjelme and Herdla to create Øygarden. On 8 May 1962, an inter-municipal road committee was established, which recommended that a limited company be established to finance the bridge. In Bergen, Bro og Tunnelselskapet had similarly built the Puddefjord Bridge and Eidsvåg Tunnel, and the inter-municipal council recommended a similar model. However, they wanted a separate company for Sotra and Øygarden, so extra tolls could be used to help finance road projects on the archipelago. On 29 June 1962, Fjell Municipality sent an official application to the County Governor to start planning, and this was sent onwards to the Directorate for Public Roads. They concluded that it would be possible to finance the bridge with tolls collected over 13 to 14 years, with the state paying for one-third of the bridge. The plans called for the bridge to run south of Norwegian Talc, but it was later routed slightly north, so that the span could be reduced from . The optimal location would be within the Norwegian Talc plant, and by placing the western pylon on a skerry, it was possible to reduce the span to . The plans from 1959 called for