Amazon say delivery as normal while Forth Road Bridge is shut

Much of the North of the country was affected by the adverse weather this weekend, but for many living around Edinburgh and Fife a more serious issue is the closure of the Forth Road Bridge.

Due to the discovery of a 2cm crack in the steel of the north east tower truss, the southbound carriageway was closed on the 1st December with a contraflow on the northbound side. By the afternoon 3rd of December the bridge closed to heavy goods traffic and then at midnight closed to all traffic and is now unlikely to reopen until the New Year at earliest.

The bridge has already been jokingly as “For parts or not working”. Having opened just 51 years ago, the Forth Road Bridge has not worn quite as well as the Forth Bridge which has carried railway traffic since 1890.

Some 70,000 vehicles per day use the Forth Road Bridge, and ScotRail are laying on additional trains which will impact services in other parts of Scotland, but one of the immediate reactions I saw on social media was a joke that whilst Edinburgh was laughing at Fife being cut off, those living in Fife responded that at least Amazon’s Dunfermline fulfilment centre is on their side of the Forth so they’d still have a Happy Christmas.

Amazon have responded saying “We are confident that the closure of the Forth Bridge will not impact our ability to deliver the service that our customers expect of us in Scotland and the rest of the UK. Amazon has a network of ten fulfilment centres in the UK and each of these serve customers across the country. We are used to dealing with transport disruptions and put in place contingency measures to ensure we continue to provide the highest levels of service to our customers“.