provide a camber to the deck. As part of that work and to compensate for the loss of lateral and torsional stiffness of the new deck, a steel undertruss was installed. This connected to the abutment at each end and, by so doing, changed the manner in which the bridge was designed to articulate. It has since had a history of connection failures. Packed above deck level to allow drainage, there is a timber kerb on each side giving a clearance of between kerbs. In its current configuration, plastic flaps are fixed approx 1m in from each kerb to provide pedestrian access to the bridge, leaving approximately carriageway for traffic. Deck trusses A suspension bridge is inherently a very flexible structure, with its vertical geometry (referred to as a funicular polygon which approximates a catenary shape which applies when the load on a cable is completely uniform) varying to balance the loads at each node. Stiffening of a minor nature is provided by the deck, but this is insufficient to prevent large vertical movements for heavy vehicles. To control this effect, this bridge is provided with stiffening trusses along each side of the deck. Each truss is pinned at the abutment and at the centre of the span. The truss form is of the Pratt truss configuration with timber top and bottom chords and timber verticals, with steel rod crossed diagonals. This configuration allows the truss to transfer loads from where it is applied in both directions to the elastic supports provided at each node by the suspension cables. The top and bottom chords consist of pairs of horizontal timber whilst the verticals are single timbers. Splices in the chords have been affected with steel side plates, some of which may be original and some replaced. The original mild steel diagonal rods have been replaced with high strength steel rods (presumably grade 8.8 steel with an ultimate tensile strength of 800 MPa). These bear on galvanised steel thrust plates which are either original or similar to the original detail. To assist with durability, the chords and vertical tops have been capped with galvanised steel flashing. Bearings and Centre Hinge The bottom chords of the side trusses terminate at mid-span at a pin joining the two truss halves, and at the abutments in bearings. The northern bearing and centre pin are of fixed pin type whilst the southern bearing is of