THE Low Road between St Ives and Fenstanton could re-open at least two weeks ahead of schedule when £700,000 repairs to the White Bridge are complete. The road closed in early February, triggering fears from traders in the village that many would lose the

THE Low Road between St Ives and Fenstanton could re-open at least two weeks ahead of schedule when £700,000 repairs to the White Bridge are complete.

The road closed in early February, triggering fears from traders in the village that many would lose their customers' principal access route to the businesses.

It is the second lengthy closure in two years, following a five-month project by the Environment Agency to install £5million flood defences. Traders lost business but were compensated for that by the agency.

This time, however, there will be no such recompense from Cambridgeshire County Council because it is carrying out a statutory duty in replacing the badly-damaged 100-year-old bridge near the Crystal Lakes leisure complex.

Nonetheless, its contractor Jackson Civil Engineering has contributed towards advertising placed by the traders and co-ordinated by the county council to assure customers that they were still open for business.

The scheme was scheduled to take 18 weeks, until June 9 or 10, but yesterday (Tuesday) project engineer Mike Eatock said he was confident the road would re-open during the Spring Bank Holiday week, beginning May 26.

The precise date would depend on work that still needed to be done by electricity and telephone engineers to replace and re-joint cables that had been moved to allow the work to go ahead.

"We shall do everything we can to get it open in the week before the Bank Holiday," he promised.

Shirley Mason, who runs a posh-frock business in the village and who co-ordinated the traders' concerns about the road closure, said: "That sounds wonderful news. It's fantastic that it's going to open early.