More than nine long and at times frustrating years after they were unceremoniously closed to vehicular traffic, two small bridges on the Holland-Sydenham Town Line have finally been replaced, re-opened, and re-named.
I have been writing about these two bridges for nine years. It has been an interesting journey that has spanned three terms of council and has posed some unique challenges for council to overcome, perhaps most notably the reality that the neighbouring municipality with whom Meaford shares this boundary road has had zero interest in helping to fund the replacement of the bridges.
To have these bridges finally re-opened is a relief to many, particularly the area farmers who for decades have relied on those two small, seemingly insignificant bridges for a safe route out of the valley.
“Tucked away in the far reaches of this municipality is a little piece of paradise that features a lush green forest, the soothing sound of water rushing along a creek bed, and a bounty of nature that would have kept the likes of John Muir busy for weeks exploring. While this little piece of paradise might make the perfect setting to commune with nature, it is also the setting for an infrastructure dilemma that has frustrated three terms of council over the course of the past seven years,” I wrote in a 2023 editorial. “If you take a drive along the 2nd Concession South between Bognor and Walter’s Falls, and make a left turn onto the gravel-topped Holland-Sydenham Town Line, you’ll travel a winding road, surrounded by trees and agricultural land. Along the route you’ll pass just four driveways to residential properties. The drive is enjoyable and relaxing, but you won’t be able to travel the full length of the road, which would bring you to Grey Road 29 if not for a closed bridge. Two bridges to be precise, structures 21 and 22 officially, one immediately after the other, and both having reached the end of their useful lives.”
The two bridges were closed in January 2016 after failing inspection, and the council of the day had planned to close them permanently. However a new council elected in 2018 had other plans, expressing a desire to keep all bridges in the municipality open. In the years since, council encountered one stumbling block after another in their quest to see the bridges replaced, and the valuable link for area farmers reopened.
I often advise people that when it comes to municipal governance, progress can be painfully slow, and I also suggest that if something is important enough, to never give up. The farmers who have relied on those bridges have never given up over the past nine years, occasionally attending council as a reminder of their plight, always calm, always polite. As much as the current and the previous terms of council made it clear that their desire was to replace and reopen the bridges, it still took nearly a decade to right the wrong that closed the bridges permanently back in 2016.
As I wrote in July 2023, “In a perfect world, in a less complicated world, the bridges would simply have been replaced in a timely manner, and seven years later most of us would barely remember that the bridges even exist, but the farmers for whom those bridges are a valuable route would certainly be appreciative.”
But our world is not so perfect, and it can be frustratingly, and unnecessarily, complicated, as was the case with these two rural bridges.
While grappling with the prospect of having to fund the replacement of these two bridges, in 2018 it was determined that, being on a boundary road, the bridges are the responsibility of both the Municipality of Meaford and the Township of Chatsworth, and then the nightmare truly began. Chatsworth resisted any plan to jointly fund the replacement of the bridges despite them being located on a boundary road.
A couple of years later, Meaford asserted that one of the two bridges met the 20-foot span criteria, which, being on a boundary road, would make that bridge the responsibility of Grey County, however the County rejected any notion that it should be responsible for that bridge.
Two small bridges on a boundary road, and the neighbouring municipality and the County didn’t want to share in the cost of replacing them.
“It seems to me that if the Municipality of Meaford wants these bridges replaced and reopened, we must be prepared to pay the full cost, because in spite of years of discussion, Chatsworth hasn’t budged in their position that, like the County, they too would opt to leave the bridges closed,” I wrote in 2023, and that is exactly how things turned out. Meaford’s council wanted the bridges re-opened, but Chatsworth and the County had no interest in helping out, so Meaford went forward alone.
Last weekend Mayor Ross Kentner, accompanied by several members of council, cut the ribbon to officially re-open the bridges which had finally been replaced.
I appreciated the mayor’s acknowledgement during his ribbon-cutting remarks of this newspaper’s coverage of the twin bridges over the past nine years. Over the weekend I was re-reading some of the many articles and editorials that I have written about the bridges over the past many years, including a lengthy article from 2017 which carried the headline: Council Faced With First Bridge Infrastructure Dilemma. I had no idea back in 2017 that I would not be writing the final chapter of this story until the summer of 2025.
Perhaps most disappointing throughout these past nine years has been the refusal of the Municipality of Chatsworth to participate in the process, nor to help fund the replacement of these two bridges, which I would remind are on a boundary road, the Holland-Sydenham Town Line, and Chatsworth should be responsible for half of the slightly more than $1 million that it cost to the replace the bridges.
So it is perhaps fitting that the new name for the bridge, the Sydenham Twin Bridges, makes no reference to the other side of that boundary road.
After nine long years, this journey is finally over, and there have been many lessons learned along the way.
