A HALF-finished footbridge in a town is being demolished this week after more than a decade of non-use.

The structure over Lake Lane in Liskeard earned the title of ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ early on in its life and has become a talking point and a bit of a landmark for all the wrong reasons.

A man was found dead under the bridge in March 2014, and the structure has attracted graffiti and refuse.

The footbridge was originally intended to connect two areas of new residential housing on either side of the lane, as well as giving easier access to schools and shops for local people. The plots closest to the bridge were being progressed by different developers. But as land changed hands, the plans for these developments stalled and changed. The original developer on the southern side of the lane went bankrupt, and along the way, the bridge was left incomplete.

Now, Linden Homes is in the process of building the final phase of its housing on the northern side, and Cornwall Council, which bought the land on the southern side at Maudlin Farm in 2018, is building its ‘Treveth’ houses.

While some local people would have liked to see the bridge finished and used as a route for vehicles, others argued it should be completed but just for use by pedestrians and cyclists, and this plan was taken up by the local authority.

But in the end, Cornwall Council decided that it was best that the bridge be demolished, and that an alternative connecting route for pedestrians and bikes would be created.

Work started to knock the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ down on Tuesday and is set to take anywhere up to three weeks: local resident Nick Hinchliff said that the central section has been demolished and now work is being done on the side sections. The rubble is being taken out through Linden Homes land and up through the residential estate onto the main road, as lorries are not permitted down Lake Lane.