A campaigner from Marlow who petitioned central government to ‘solve’ the loss of a Thames Path link to Hurley in Berkshire via Temple Bridge last year is now hoping to press the Environment Agency (EA) for a ‘speedy solution’ – 15 months after the ‘dangerous’ crossing was shut off to the public.

Karl Matthews, a member of a campaign group formed last summer to protest the footbridge’s closure in May 2023, told the Free Press that the EA’s recommended diversion route – via Marlow Road and Bisham Road – was “dangerous”, describing it as “a narrow path with cars rushing past”.

Mr Matthews even submitted a petition to central government in July 2023 calling for a “speedy solution” to the loss of part of the Thames Path walk, which was rejected after being judged to require local action rather than from legislators in the House of Commons.

The campaigner, who lives in Marlow, is continuing to push ahead with his effort to save – or supplement – the “vital amenity”, however, and told locals in a Facebook group called ‘Save the Thames Path’ that he had pinned the EA down for a meeting to discuss “options on the table” for its future in early September.

While a “concrete move forward” is not yet confirmed, he is hopeful that the meeting will mark progress for the campaign and shine a light on a “workable way forward” – potentially through crowdfunding – to arrive at a compromise with the EA, which has repeatedly said the bridge is “unsafe” and declined to map out a timeline for repair works.

(Image: Steve Tillbury)

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A spokesperson for Bisham Parish Council, based on Marlow Road near the bridge’s Berkshire bank, also criticised the alternative Thames Path route earlier this month, sharing that pedestrians had reported “being clipped by car wing mirrors” on the busy road.

In response to such concerns, and perhaps in coordination with its meeting with Mr Matthews to discuss next steps, the EA told the Free Press it was “looking into providing a shorter diversion through private land” on August 17.

In regard to the future of Temple Bridge itself, however, a spokesperson was not optimistic – describing the closure as “necessary for public safety” and enforced after the decay of structural elements signalled it was “coming to the end of its design life”.

The footbridge was built in 1989 specifically for walkers on the Thames Path following a campaign by Maidenhead resident Margaret Bowdery who, upon her death in 2016, was remembered by the Open Spaces Society as a “redoubtable” figure who “saved countless walkers from death or injury by securing safer routes”.