Lynne Mowbray | Saturday’s opening ceremony of the new Sportsmans Creek Bridge at Lawrence gave the community an opportunity to walk over the new bridge and check it out, before it opened to traffic on Monday, 26 February. Lawrence Museum’s publicity officer Roz Jones said that she believes that the new bridge will be great for the community and the farmers in particular will be very pleased. “The old bridge has been not terribly secure for the last 15 years and I believe that discussions about a new bridge have been underway for the last 20 years,” Ms Jones said.a “So I think that there will be a lot of people within the community that are very relieved and pleased to see the new bridge opened. “With the old bridge, which is due to be demolished in the near future, I know there will be a lot of people who will be sad to see it go, but I think it’s probably gone way past its used by date. “It was opened in 1911 after all, but the museum is actually going to keep some of the old steel from the bridge. I don’t think that there’s going to be a lot of timber left, due to the white ant damage, but we are going to keep some of it because it was one of the first Harvey Dare designs [Dare Truss Bridges] and it was one of only two, which were a particular width. “So it’s quite significant and we are talking with the RMS and we believe we will get the steel girders and the different parts which show the design and that will be there for the community to see as well as the model of the bridge. “During the construction of the bridge, I think it’s been a good relationship between the community and the RMS and the contractors Delaney Civil – I think it’s worked very well. There has been a lot of respect for the community. “With Saturday’s inclement weather for the official opening on Saturday, I don’t think the rain deterred anybody. “Even the people outside the marquee were happy to stand out in the rain underneath their brollies listening to the official opening. “It was actually wonderful to see a sea of umbrellas moving across the bridge and returning with all the different colours; it looked wonderful,” she said.