The motorway bridge crossing the River Severn has been shut Westbound all morning.
No not that one.
That one is the M4 Crossing, also known as the Second Severn Crossing, also known as The Prince of Wales Bridge. It seems to have more names than Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. But, unlike Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the bridge isn't a pathological liar and convicted football hooligan followed by morons.
In the background, you can see the bridge with the closure. That is the M48 Crossing, also known as the original crossing. Not named after any member of the royal family as far as I am aware.
Unprecedented levels of staff sickness meant that they didn't have enough people to collect toll money. This meant that anyone travelling into Wales had to use the M4 bridge but anyone travelling out of Wales was OK because you only pay the tolls in one direction.
Maybe they should have just made it free in both directions for the duration. But I guess that wouldn't have brought in the revenue that forcing motorists to detour would have done. Not very environmentally friendly when you consider the wasted miles.
The scheduled closure was from 5am until 2pm - it doesn't say how they knew everyone would be well again by 2pm.
The BBC version of the story is here. It is on their Gloucestershire bit not their Welsh bit. I suppose that is logical as it is the people in Gloucestershire not the people in Wales who will have been inconvenienced.
Meanwhile, over on the Wales bit of the BBC News site, they have this story.
Wrexham Council are going to have to fork out £7100 to replace parking signs after someone went out with a black marker pen correcting errors in the Welsh translations on them:
Bet they wish they had a bridge they could charge people to cross.
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