HOPES are high that a 15-year wrangle over access to the Ribble Way could finally be solved this year, with a space-age £500,000 bridge.

Lawyers working for Lancashire County Council are currently trying to buy up land which would enable the authority to build the bridge, designed by one of the country's leading bridge architects.

When built, across the Ribble-Calder confluence, it will enable people to walk from one end of the 70-mile Ribble Way to the other for the first time without having to take a de-tour via busy roads in the Little Mitton area of the Ribble Valley.

It will also link several other public footpaths which have come to a dead end ever since the Hacking Ferry ceased crossing the rivers from Hacking Hall to Little Mitton in 1955.

The design of the bridge was first unveiled in 2001 and, while praised by councillors as an ideal solution, was criticised by locals for being out of character.

It is now hoped that agreements can be reached with landowners in the near future so the bridge can be built.

Failing that, councillors have authorised the use of Compulsory Purchase Orders to buy the land.

A plan in 1990 to build a new bridge further down, across the River Hodder near Winkley Hall Farm, had to be abandoned after talks with nearby landowners collapsed.

Ramblers have since continued campaigning for a bridge to link the footpaths -- and save them from battling traffic when walking along roads.

The tripod-shaped structure, designed by London-based architects Flint and Neill will be paid for mostly by the county council. It incorporates stainless steel, glass reinforced plastic and concrete and will be about 100 metres long.

County Councillor Mary Wilson, who serves the Longridge area, said: "It will have massive benefits to the area.

"It will open up a lot of footpaths and rights of way which previously haven't been so well used because people have not been able to cross the river there.

"Its design should attract a lot of people. I know it has not pleased everyone there, because it is a bit too avant garde, but it will last a long time. Hopefully, well see work start on it this year."

Because the site is difficult to get machinery to, the bridge will probably be shipped into the site by helicopter.

Frank Parrott, footpath secretary for the Ramblers Association North-East Lancashire area said: "We have been pressing for a bridge since the Ribble Way opened.

"I think it is an impressive and sensitive design, though such designs will always generate a mixture of admiration and outrage."

The company designing the bridge are also involved in work on the Humber Bridge, near Hull, and a new bridge across the Yangzte River, in Shanghai, which will be the longest cable-support bridge in the world.