Bailey bridge at last

A NEW bailey bridge built over the Ivule River in Bialla, West New Britain, will hopefully save millions of kina for the government, acting provincial works manager, John Sitapa said.
He said the river damaged bridges in Bialla every time it rained heavily, costing the national and provincial governments millions of kina each year to repair.
Sitapa said the river changed courses, often damaging infrastructure and the works department had been building new bridges every year.
The Bailey bridge built at Ivule River in 1985 was washed away by a flood.
Since then, log bridges had been used which had to be repaired costing the works department K1 million yearly.
Sitapai said this year the provincial works department used the K1m in emergency funds to build a Bailey bridge using piled abutment to make it stronger.
The construction and piling was done by local builder Nivani.
The assembling of the bridge was done by the Works Department.
Sitapai said the Ivule and Tiauru bridges on the New Britain highway would be replaced under the Asian Development Bank’s major bridge replacement programme.