Multimillion-dollar bill to demolish old Bridgewater Bridge

While the brand spanking new Bridgewater Bridge has opened to traffic, attention is turning to the old bridge. What happens next for the 79-year-old steel lift bridge.

The Bridgewater Bridge before the new bridge was built, showing the area next to the causeway at low tide. Picture: Kelvin Ball

The old Bridgewater Bridge will be demolished at a cost of more than $14m – but the convicted built causeway will remain.

After receiving four bids for the demolition work, a contract was signed this month for the work to be done in a joint venture between Hazell Bros and Brady Marine.

They have signed a $14,478,838m contract with the work to be completed by March next year.

The old Bridgewater Bridge was built between Granton and Bridgewater in 1946 and the area has important cultural heritage sites and values.

The Bridgewater Bridge before the new bridge was built. Picture: Kelvin Ball

It is being demolished because it is in poor condition and the growing cost to maintain it.

The Department of State Growth said the old Bridgewater Bridge had now reached the end of its economic life and with the opening of the new bridge it would be demolished.

“The old Bridgewater Bridge has served Tasmania for nearly 80 years,” a department spokesman said.

“A contract was recently awarded, and a works program is now being finalised.

“The convict-built causeway will remain, and the Department of State Growth is working with stakeholders around future opportunities for the causeway now that it is no longer part of the State Road Network.

“There is a strong community connection to the bridge, and the Department is also working with Heritage Tasmania and others to ensure its historical significance is respected and appropriately recognised.

“This includes developing a heritage interpretation strategy that tells the story of the 1940s bridge, and the three bridges that came before it.”

The official opening ceremony for the new Bridgewater Bridge on June 1, 2025. Picture: Department of State Growth Tasmania

It is hoped there will be an interpretative signage trail, public artwork and digital material at the site.

The lifting section of the old bridge is believed to be one of only a few remaining in the southern hemisphere, and the largest of its kind remaining in Australia.

“While most materials will be recycled, key heritage elements, including significant joints and welds, will be retained and featured in public artworks on the Bridgewater foreshore,” the spokesman said.

Brighton mayor Leigh Gray is pleased with plans for the site.

“The causeway should stay in situ and certainly made accessible to people to utilise in some way, shape or form,” Mr Gray said.

“It’s obviously convict heritage and my understanding is it can’t be removed.

“To open the river up, obviously the old bridge needs to be removed and obviously that’s what State Growth have put in place.

“Some of the piers, et cetera, may stay in place.”

Mr Gray said he believed bird life in the river would “go on unhindered”.

More than 7000 Tasmanians walked over the new $786m bridge, which was jointly funded by the federal and state governments.

The new four-lane 1.2km bridge, described as the biggest transport infrastructure in the state’s history, opened to traffic on June 2.

Opening the bridge, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was world-class infrastructure that would “improve safety, deliver a better commuter experience, and boost productivity in this great state”.

Originally published as Multimillion-dollar bill to demolish old Bridgewater Bridge