This is how the Newbridge Road Bridge could look with people on it again, in artist’s impressions drawn up for the council a decade after it was fenced off and more than half a century after the last car crossed it.
The restored bridge would carry a four-metre shared path for walkers and cyclists over the River Afan between Sandfields and Riverside Road, linking Port Talbot‘s west side to the docks, the town centre and National Cycle Route 4.
The images come from a pre-application consultation that runs until Tuesday 10 November. After that, Neath Port Talbot Council will submit the planning and listed building applications and, as the planning authority, decide them itself.
The bridge was closed to all users in 2016 after engineers found its central span had deteriorated badly. It had been shut to traffic since 1972.
Four girders older than the bridge, two past saving
The Grade II listed bridge opened on 29 October 1903, built by the old Aberavon Corporation to give the new docks a road across the river. Three spans sit on stone piers in the water.
The structural appraisal by the council’s engineers found the four wrought iron box girders carrying the two outer spans are in reasonable condition and can be salvaged.
They are second-hand. The heritage assessment says the girders were reused from an earlier bridge when this one was built, and that their survival is “of at least regional significance” because so few of their type remain.
The two steel girders under the middle span are another matter. They are “severely corroded and past repair”, the assessment says, and one is held up by temporary props.
Under the plans, the whole deck would be stripped off, the middle span scrapped and replaced with new steel girders designed to echo the originals, and the outer girders taken away to a workshop for repair before being put back.
A new, narrower concrete deck would go on top, cutting the load on the old ironwork. The stone abutments and river piers stay, with repairs.
Lighting would be built into a new handrail rather than lamp columns, an approach the assessment says was agreed with Cadw‘s regional inspector to keep modern additions off the bridge.
Riverside Road rebuilt, 45 trees out and a rain garden in
The bridge is only half the scheme. Riverside Road, which runs from the bridge to the Afan Way roundabout, would be rebuilt with sheet piling to hold up the river embankment, a new 7.3-metre carriageway, the shared path alongside it, street lighting and drainage.
That means 45 trees along Riverside Road coming out before the piling goes in. The council says most are in poor condition and will be replaced at three to one, with a rain garden, hedges and wildflower areas planted.
The ecology surveys found a bat roost in one of the bridge piers, signs of otters on both riverbanks and oxtongue broomrape growing beside the road, a plant that will be moved to council land nearby.
Natural Resources Wales has told the council the Afan is a migratory route for salmon, sea trout and eels, and piling noise around high tide, when the fish move upstream, is flagged as the biggest risk to them.
On Newbridge Road itself, two raised tables would slow traffic on the approach to the bridge.
What 234 people told the council, and what worried them
The council ran a six-week public consultation in February and March, with three drop-in days at Aberavon Leisure Centre and Aberafan Shopping Centre. It drew 234 responses.
Eight in ten said the route would encourage more people to walk and cycle, and more than 80% agreed it would improve connectivity and be safe to use. Most said they would use it for leisure, with the beach the most popular destination.
Poor lighting was the most common worry about using the bridge, raised by a third of respondents. Others feared anti-social behaviour, motorbikes using the path, the narrower deck and the loss of fishing from the bridge, and some said the money would be better spent on schools or road repairs.
Councillors for Sandfields East, Sandfields West and Margam and Taibach raised the same three concerns at a meeting in January: motorcyclists, the reduced width and fishing.
£13.5m from the Levelling Up Fund, and how to comment by 10 November
The scheme is paid for by £12.16m of UK Government Levelling Up money confirmed in July 2025, with the council adding £1.35m. The total is £13.5m.
That money followed £803,000 for design work the previous month. Both came out of the original £27m Levelling Up award to Port Talbot in November 2023, which also funded the Civic Square and Princess Royal Theatre work.
The council has not given a start date for construction. A further round of investigations, to expose the foundations of the stone piers at each end, was planned for last month.
Comments go to Asbri Planning, the council’s planning agent, at mail@asbriplanning.co.uk or by post to Suite D, 1st Floor, 220 High Street, Swansea SA1 1NW, by 10 November. The drawings and reports are on the Asbri Planning consultation page.
The bridge is one of dozens of walking and cycling routes the council has mapped across the borough, and the Wales Coast Path and Afan Valley Trail both run across it.
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