The ailing swing bridge for St George’s, closed for a year in April of last year as a Government cost-saving measure, remains in poor condition — and could stay closed.

As of October, a Public Works engineer conceded that the Ministry’s structures team was “very short on resources” and had made little progress on repairing the Ferry Reach bridge, which has traditionally opened to admit sailing vessels through the channel.

Last year, the bridge was closed for essential repairs to take place.

The closure was hoped to save Government around $163,000 in labour costs, and head off the ominous possibility of the swing bridge breaking down and remaining stuck in the open position. Seven months later, supports to the bridge remained “severely corroded”, which according to a survey had justified keeping the bridge closed.

“We are planning to carry out a full structural survey of the bridge to determine whether a weight restriction needs to be applied,” the engineer added.

“The lack of resources has also meant that it has not been possible to compile tenders yet for any improvement works.”

There was no update available last night on the current status of the bridge.

But Government has repeatedly stressed a severe shortage of extra funding — likely to characterise this Friday’s issuing of the 2015-16 Budget.

For sail charter operator Jerry Correia, October’s report — and the continued poor shape of the swing bridge — came as no surprise.

Last year, Mr Correia was adamant that closing the bridge would cost him dearly in his takings.

“I knew the day that they closed it that it wasn’t opening back up,” he said.

“They said a year — I didn’t believe it.”

Mr Correia said the control room for the swing bridge had a damaged roof, and was very likely salt damaged inside. I don’t think they would even be able to open it now — if you don’t use it, it rusts, and that’s pretty much what happened here,” he said. “Even with the America’s Cup coming, nobody has been able to get much of a response on this.”

In response to the Government’s dire financial situation, he said: “What money did they save? The two guys that had been working on it were still being paid.”

The captain, who runs Ocean Breeze sail charters, said that having the swing bridge closed had probably lost him in the region of $12,000 over the course of last year’s season.

“I need to charge three hours extra if I need to go from St George’s to Hamilton or Dockyard — people don’t want to pay that,” he said.

“When I’m in St George’s and the wind is blowing out of the east, I can’t go anywhere.

“Instead of saving money this has caused me to lose money, and Government has lost money too.

“That’s payroll tax that I can’t pay because I have lost that revenue.”