New Wear Crossing to feature on BBC's The One Show on Monday

A film crew from the BBC's flagship magazine show spent a day on the site of the New Wear Crossing interviewing the team and capturing footage of the cable stays being installed this summer.

The feature, presented by the show's science and technology presenter Marty Jopson, is due to be aired on Monday's show, which starts at 7pm on BBC1.

However, as the show is live and the BBC is preparing for Children In Need next week, the scheduling does come with a caveat that pre-recorded features could be postponed at the last minute. If that happens, the feature will be shown at a later date.

The film includes interviews with the New Wear Crossing team's Tim Sullivan, Designers' Site Representative, of Buro Happold Engineering, and shows the processes around installing the bridge's 28 cable stays, which was carried out by VSL International.

The feature includes filming from a variety of locations on the construction site in Pallion, including from the basket of a crane and a boat on the river.

Tim said: "Having The One Show team on site was a great experience. Their interest in the project and enthusiasm for what we are doing here in Sunderland was excellent to see.

"I think they genuinely loved the new bridge, so hopefully that will come across in the programme."

Sunderland City Council's Deputy Council Leader, Cllr Harry Trueman, said he was looking forward to watching the show.

"The New Wear Crossing is the biggest infrastructure project in the North East, involving a lot of complex and challenging different engineering processes, so we were delighted to showcase what we are doing in Sunderland to the BBC1 film crew," said Cllr Trueman.

"It's easy to become complacent about the scale and importance of this new bridge project, but construction schemes of this size and nature don't come along very often and the fact we have national TV interest shows that.

"We are looking forward to watching the programme."

The New Wear Crossing is the first bridge to be built across the River Wear in the city for 40 years. It is Phase 2 of the Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor, which is a five-phase road enhancement scheme to improve links between the A19 and Sunderland City Centre and the Port of Sunderland.

It will link Castletown with Pallion and will enable land along the south side of the river to be regenerated. It will also attract investment into Sunderland, help to create jobs, and reduce journey time for motorists travelling around the city.

Stephen McCaffrey, Project Director for Farrans Construction and Victor Buyck Steel Construction, which formed FVB joint venture to deliver the project on behalf of Sunderland City Council, said: "We are all incredibly proud to be working on Sunderland's new bridge, so were delighted to host the film crew from BBC1's The One Show and explain some of the engineering and technical processes involved.

"They spent a long time filming on site, and showed great interest, so I'm sure they will do Sunderland proud."