An emergency meeting is being held by the County Council this afternoon to discuss ways of bridging the Derwent at Workington, where residents currently face a 40-mile detour if they want to get from one side of the river to the other.Structural engineers have told the council that prefabricated bridges could be built over the Derwent in a matter of days, if necessary, as they are strong enough to cross the river in a single span. Bailey bridges, named after their inventor, Donald Bailey, have been in use since the Second World War, when their light, modular design enabled soldiers to piece together bridges in a matter of hours without the need for cranes or specialist equipment. They are designed to hold the weight of a tank, and were credited by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as being one of the most important inventions of the war
