Adelaide’s Love Locks on Adelaide Uni footbridge face the chop, could be too heavy

THE hundreds of ‘love locks’ on the Adelaide University footbridge could be removed, with the City Council considering their future amid safety concerns and the weight on the bridge.

3.2.2016. Couple Shayan Yazarloo and Monique Wright. Adelaide University footbridge which has padlocks locked on it by couples. Photo Sam Wundke

A BREAKUP is on the cards for hundreds of “Love Locks” and the Adelaide University footbridge they’re attached to, as Adelaide City Council considers their future amid safety concerns.

The council is expected to vote on Tuesday for a report into the structural and loading impact on the University of Adelaide Footbridge from the practice of affixing the padlocks — known as “Love Locks” — to the bridge.

But it won’t necessarily be a final farewell for the romantic gesture, as the report will look at possible locations, design options and costings for a piece of public art designed to accommodate the practice of attaching Love Locks in a “safe, lawful and visually attractive manner”.

It is unclear where the idea of using the lock ritual to symbolise love originated, but the padlocks bearing lovers’ initials have spread from European capitals to as far as Marrakech and China.

Hundreds of padlocks adorn the Adelaide uni footbridge. The practice is under a cloud, with Adelaide City Council considering their future. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

In Paris last year more than a million Love Locks were removed from the City of Love’s Pont des Arts bridge which at the time weighed more than 45,000 kilograms.

Councillor Alex Antic wants to make sure that measures are taken to ensure that the romantic gestures don’t turn into headaches as they did in Melbourne, where the Love Locks were no match for boltcutters.

“I totally understand the logic, rationale and intent but there seems to be precedent for that practice to be detrimental towards bridges,” he told The City.

“It seems to me to be somewhat inevitable as time goes on the build-up of these locks becomes a real issue for the structural integrity of the bridge by virtue of the weight and the corrosive nature of some of the locks.”

For three years, Melbourne lovers attached Love Locks to the footbridge between Southbank and Flinders Street Station before Melbourne City Council ordered workers to remove the padlocks.

“I’m trying to pre-empt that and find a way so we can get some costings and get some funding models for a piece of public art which we can put somewhere which might take the role of the bridge, ” Cr Antic said.

“It seems to be a growing trend so I think we should look at it now.”