Major Tyne Bridge restoration milestone as new coat of green paint ready to be unveiled

Newcastle City Council, Gateshead Council, and ESH bosses admire a newly repainted section of the Tyne Bridge
-Credit: (Image: Iain Buist/Newcastle Chronicle)


The first green shoots of recovery on the rusted Tyne Bridge are ready to be revealed.

Major restoration work on the famous bridge has hit an exciting milestone, with the first repainted section of the crossing about to be unveiled to the public. After years of watching the paintwork on the grade II* listed structure crack, peel, and become drained of its colour, Tynesiders will soon get a glimpse of a section of the parapet and underside of the main bridge deck that has been restored to its original green.

Scaffolding that has surrounded the bridge’s Gateshead tower for the last year will be gradually dismantled between this month and January, allowing people to see the progress made in the first section of its long-awaited refurbishment. As well as a full repaint, in a ‘Hollybush’ colour intended to be as close as possible to the Tyne Bridge’s original look, the crossing is undergoing a huge number of vital structural repairs in what is its first major maintenance for more than 20 years.

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Engineers confirmed on Wednesday that they have already found a further 100 defects during their work so far, on top of a previous 900 that were known, but say that the £32 million restoration remains on course to be completed in the summer of 2028 – in time for the Tyne Bridge’s 100th anniversary in the October of that year. Some beams have been described as so rusted and thin that a shovel or even a foot would easily break through them, while 10 tonnes of pigeon guano has already been removed.

Speaking on a special tour inside the bridge’s scaffolding to showcase the repainted section, Esh Construction chief Stephen McClean said: “Everybody could tell when we started this scheme that it desperately needed it. Paint was flaking, rust everywhere, holes appearing left, right and centre. So we have carried out a lot of work over these last six months to get the bridge to a state where we are hopefully going to unveil to the public in the next couple of weeks this lovely new, green, bold paint.”

139,400 litres of paint will be used on the bridge, enough to fill 850 beer barrels, and the colour has been chosen to closely resemble the original 1920s paint job, a ‘Superlative Middle Green’ supplied by the Gateshead firm J Dampney and Co. The Tyne Bridge has been green for most of its history, aside from a period between 1961 and 1985 when it was ‘persian blue’.

Esh operatives have grit blasted off between eight and 11 layers of old paint to expose the bridge’s steelwork, before applying the new, three-coat paint system. Workers apply some of a protective undercoat by hand around joins and rivets, before the green layers are sprayed on top. It is hoped that the new paint will have a lifespan of 30 years, having been chosen for its colour retention and ability to withstand the testing weather conditions of the Tyne Gorge, though it is expected to need some touching up halfway through that period.

Pamela Holmes, Newcastle City Councils’ assistant director of transport, said that the public will see a “massive contrast” between the repainted section and rest of the bridge once the Gateshead scaffolding starts to come down. She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We are still in the early stages but we are on programme, despite us finding another 100 repairs while doing this work – that takes the total number of repairs to over 1,000.

Tyne Bridge restoration: A newly painted part of the bridge.
Tyne Bridge restoration: A newly painted part of the bridge. -Credit:Iain Buist/Newcastle Chronicle

“But we will start to drop the Gateshead scaffolding and people will be able to incrementally see the paintwork revealed. That means we will be going to the Newcastle side, where the scaffolding is going up.”

The Tyne Bridge’s refurbishment is being carried out across 20 different phases over the four-year programme, as it could not withstand the 13,000 tonne weight of all the scaffolding being erected at once.

Work will move across from the Gateshead tower to the Newcastle side of the bridge, where the next set of scaffolding is being erected now. Once that is completed, the scaffolding will then move to the underside of the bridge deck and gradually work its way up the famous archway.

Karen Kilgour, Labour’s newly-elected leader in Newcastle, said: “This is a really exciting time for the project with the first coat of green paint being applied. It truly is a remarkable and welcome transformation seeing this much-loved icon being restored to its former glory.

“Much of the transformation has had to be kept away from the public behind the scaffolding as almost 100 years’ worth of old and defective paint, including lead-based paint, has had to be grit blasted off back to the original steel. The steel has been repaired and then repainted, as close as possible to the original green, and soon the public will be able to see the progress made as we begin to remove the scaffolding on the Gateshead tower.

“This has been a real labour of love for all involved in this major scheme and the teams have worked non-stop since the project got underway this April. It will be a proud day when the restoration is complete, and we see the bridge shining proudly once again in the Tyneside skyline.”