Love locks removal plan on Derbyshire bridge postponed

Thousands of love locks attached to a bridge in a Derbyshire town will be able to remain in place for at least an extra 12 months.

It is estimated that at least 10,000 padlocks have been attached to Weir Bridge in Bakewell in the past 10 years by people wanting to commemorate special events, anniversaries and loved ones who have died.Earlier this year, Derbyshire County Council said it needed to carry out routine maintenance on the bridge over the River Wye, which is downstream from the town's nearby historic Grade I-listed 14th century stone bridge.And to carry out the work, it wanted to remove all the locks and not allow any more to be attached in the future. The council is planning to resurface the deck of the bridge and repaint all the steelwork.

In response, retired Bakewell businessman Richard Young set up a Save the Love Locks at Bakewell Facebook page to campaign for the locks to remain in the town in the form of a sculpture or installation rather than be lost altogether.Since then, various schemes and ideas for relocating the locks have been put forward and some people have travelled to the town to remove their locks rather than risk losing them.But now Derbyshire County Council has issued a statement": "We need to carry out some routine maintenance on the bridge and would need to remove the locks to do this work."However while the work is needed, it is not urgent and won’t take place until 2023."We will need to work up plans for what we do with the locks, but this won’t happen until nearer the time, when we would give people the chance to collect their locks."In view of this we have asked for a meeting with the various authorities to work through all the options for the love locks."

Mr Young has said that the delay will give people more time to plan what to do and that if the locks have to be removed that a suitable alternative solution is found, although he would prefer them to be left there.He said on his Facebook site, which now has 650 members: "I do believe with the sentiments around each individual love lock that they are kept in their entirety."But there are many designs which can be looked at and hopefully we can agree with the various councils for an alternative site for the locks (if they have to be removed)."The bridge has become a free tourist attraction with people coming from across the world to hang locks and then revisit them.