They spent £18 million on a bridge that carries no cars. No buses. No lorries. Just pedestrians and cyclists — and it’s already dividing the city.
The Waterside Bridge opened on 2 June 2026. It’s the first new crossing over the River Trent in Nottingham since Clifton Bridge went up in 1958. At 87 metres long and weighing 160 tonnes of British steel, it’s an impressive structure — built in Hucknall, lifted into place in November 2025. But the budget doubled from the original £9 million estimate, and not everyone’s convinced it was money well spent.
In this video, I walk the new bridge on opening day, look at what it actually connects — Trent Basin to Lady Bay, Colwick Country Park to Holme Pierrepont — and ask the question a lot of people are already asking: was this really the best use of £18 million?
📍 Waterside Bridge, River Trent, Nottingham
📅 Filmed 2 June 2026
📌 KEY FACTS:
• First new River Trent crossing in 67 years (since Clifton Bridge, 1958)
• 87m tied arch bridge — 160 tonnes, built from British steel at Britons in Hucknall
• Pedestrian and cycle use only — no motor traffic permitted
• Originally budgeted at £9m; final cost rose to £18m
• Funded through the Government’s Transforming Cities programme
• Connects Sneinton and Lady Bay; unlocks access to Colwick Country Park, Holme Pierrepont, and Skylarks Nature Reserve
#Nottingham #WatersideBridge #RiverTrent #CyclingInfrastructure #UKInfrastructure #UrbanRegeneration #EastMidlands #NottinghamNews
23 Comments
Misspent tax payers money again we need another bridge for cars with pedestrian footpath like the Lady bay bridge it is a joke same as the cycling road at Adboulton lane that cost millions & no one hardly use it
Quite impressive. A nice modern design.
It's an attractive structure. Nice that it was built locally…hopefully it's an optical illusion that the base is uneven. I'd be curious to see it at night…is it lit? Could do with some more seating.
Crazy amount of money though. I wonder how many times less it would have cost on the mainland.
What we need is a road bridge.
It could have been spent on roads schools NHS people in need
Keep up the great work Ant
Still not a patch on the Great Central Railway bridge over the river Trent
I just don't understand purpose of this bridge. Why did they not build it further to the east so that it linked Colwick country park and the Holme Pierrepont Country park together allowing easy use of both parks it would have also linked Radcliffe-on Trent and beyond to the city making an easier cycling and walking route?
Ant, that crane at 3:37 is amazing, it looks close to a Liebherr LR 11350-P1800 crawler crane???
You're right, projects take a lot longer today. True story, the original Disneyland in California took one year to build — from a online source: Disneyland was famously built in exactly one year and one day. Groundbreaking took place in Anaheim, California, on July 16, 1954, and the park officially opened its gates to guests on July 17, 1955…….
Now it takes ""YEARS"" just to get a permit for a project that large.
Thanks to Ant for another great watch…..
I’ll give it a few weeks before the graffiti yobs tag it 😫
A bridge to nowhere …😂
It starts at an exclusive housing development and ends at an exclusive sports club. Need i say any more.
Cycled along this bridge from Colwick to Radcliffe on Tuesday. Much nicer ride for me now along the river, and cuts out the gauntlet around Ladybay bridge and the Harley Davidson island.
We walked across it yesterday. I'm all for improving the city and people's lives, but think it's in the wrong place. It will make it a little shorter for Forest & cricket fans walking to matches from northeast of the river. Been through this kind of thing with Nottm City Council before where they're broke but spend millions on a pet project/white elephant. Presume this will help them to take over the bank accounts of neighbouring councils to fund more cycle lanes, trams, eco projects and then warrant why they have to push up council tax. Hope it's not a waste of money!
To be honest, this bridge has been a good thing. It's connecting cycling and walking paths either side of the river, but for me specifically my family parks around that industrial estate and walks to the City Ground or Trent Bridge, so this saves us several hundred metres of walking alongside a road I absolutely hate with a passion.
Nottingham is for the most part an excellent walking and cycling city, but there's parts which are absolutely hostile to pedestrians and I know that any future visits where we park around that area, we'll be using that bridge.
Fact is that the lady bay bridge is accessible by cyclists and pedestrians in theory but its a dangerous nightmare in reality. They must have decided that it was easier to build a new bridge than sort out the roads and derelict industrial buildings on the north side. I like it and will be using it twice a day for work. I think it will spur on more regeneration of the areas to the north from former industrial to residential.
Great footage!
Built by a bankrupt council? To increase the connectivity to Rushcliffe in order to reinforce the argument that City and Rushcliffe should merge. The money City will gain will more than offset the expense, but they will just spaff it away anyway.
Total waste of money, rate payers paying for someone’s folly, health and wellbeing they chant well walk on down to the other bridge and get extra exercise, money could have benefited the people of Nottingham better
I notice during you're filming there was only 5 users and that's on the second day it was open.
A total waste of money, just like the million pound plus cycle lane on Regatta Way.
Councillors and officials wasting our money.
It would have been much cheaper and more useful to attach walkways to the side of Ladybay Bridge.
Does it allow chickens to cross? If they want to cross the river.
I'm a car driver, cyclist and runner and this bridge is great! Cycling over trent bridge or lady bay bridge is absolutely lethal, there needs to be some really good signing to direct cyclists over this bridge, or the memorial bridge (another cyclist/pedestrian bridge further down). Depending on where i need to be i'll using this bridge or the memorial one to get into the centre, one less cyclist for people to moan at as they drive on the road bridges 😀
It's usefulness is apparent by the number of pedestrians and cyclists not crossing the bridge. The novelty of a new bridge soon wore off didn't it?