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Salford is to have a new footbridge, designed by architects Tonkin Liu, with Arup engineers. Their winning entry to a competition run by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) was announced on 22 January by Salford City Mayor Ian Stewart who said, “We will now be working with our partners to find the funding to create this stunning new bridge”. Ah. That’s not quite the same as winning, is it? You’re top of the podium, but now we’ve got to go out and find your prize. Apparently there were 172 entries from 31 countries. Each of the four short listed teams receive £4000. To see just how frightening some of the entries were, I recommend you go to the web site of the cheerfully specialist, if a touch cynical, Happy Pontist: http://happypontist.blogspot.co.uk/

Whoever has the most to gain from the reshaping of the twin cities, and neighbouring boroughs, it is blindingly obvious that we are changing shape, and that the waterfront to the Irwell, the Quays and the Ship Canal is probably the most dynamic development terrain in the North West.

Salford Meadows footbridge is another step along the path to Irwell River Park, a vision that would appear to glint more brightly in the eye of Salford than that of Manchester. I might be wrong. Whoever has the most to gain from the reshaping of the twin cities, and neighbouring boroughs, it is blindingly obvious that we are changing shape, and that the waterfront to the Irwell, the Quays and the Ship Canal is probably the most dynamic development terrain in the North West. No ifs or buts save one: when will the recession bottom out in our region such that the potential can be taken up?

The new bridge is to the top of the River Park. I believe in this area, I embrace the idea that places can be made and unmade by shifts in perception. I am still amused, perplexed and faintly admiring of Salford’s infamous One Shocking City campaign of 2005. You remember: There’s tons of grass in Salford, Salford spitting distance from Manchester, Public hangings are back in Salford, and my own personal favourite, that made me spit tea all over my Saturday paper; Salford, you’re never far from a main artery. Well, grass, pond life, arteries and all, something has happened on the banks of the Irwell, and bridges, more especially, bridges supported by Salford City Council are part and parcel.

Peel Park, by Salford Museum and Art Gallery, and the university, was very probably the first publically funded park in the UK (it was the first of three parks that had a joint opening ceremony on 22 August 1846, the others being Queen’s and Philips). Named in honour of the same Robert Peel who gave his name to the family owned mega development company that created Media City, there is a circularity to the story, if not, as yet, an entire circuit to Irwell River Park.

Tonkin Liu’s bridge, appears modest enough (it will need to be for £2m). The languid “S” shaped deck is supported by an upward curving arch connecting both banks of the river, from below the cantilevered street to the meadows. The arch is an Emmental cheese of steel plates perforated by tubes, that does a twist on its way to the opposite bank. Its built quality will depend on handling of materials, lighting, take-off and landing. Such is true of any bridge, but this one is trying to do tricks. Think scores for complexity in gymnastics. This boy could land on his arse.  

Salford Crescent, its well-proportioned curve of Georgian terrace, is only one remarkable feature of a once great street. Chapel Street is slowly being worked on, with limited resources in difficult times. There’s a new footbridge at Greengate, in front of Manchester Cathedral. It works. The old police station, Trinity church, Salford Cathedral, the old town hall and Bexley Square, St Philip with St Stephen on Wilton Place, the ghosts of pubs and gin palaces, Eagle, King’s Head, Rovers Return. The cinema where the late great Alistair Cooke saw his lifetime’s first film. The Chapel Street chapel, the Brown Bull. What a street this has been, and will never be again.

A fancy new bridge is not a lot to ask. They can do it, these bridges. They can take us somewhere we never even knew we hadn’t been. Down stream from Salford Meadows, below Victoria and Albert, past Trinity and Prince’s, beneath the Irwell Railway Bridge of 1830, the first bridge anywhere in the world to carry a railway line across a river, as far as Woden Street. Woden Street footbridge between Ordsall and St George’s Island. Here, as if by magic, but in fact by ordinance, The River Irwell becomes the Manchester Ship Canal. It’s an ill wind, so they say, that blows no one any good. There’s to be a new footbridge for Salford. I’m all for it.