Magdalen Bridge will close again on May day this year to prevent people, most of whom are students, from jumping into the river Cherwell despite pleas to reopen it.
This year, members of the Oxford City Council’s East area called for it to be reopened, but John Kelly said that the bridge would remain closed “as was decided three years ago.”
Superintendent Brendan O’Dowda told The Oxford Mail, “Last year the event passed off without incident and I think it is likely that the event will be managed in the same way as it was last year.”
Yet three students from Oxford Brookes still managed to bypass the security and jump into the river last year, prompting doubts over the effectiveness of the closure.However, John Kelly, Oxfordshire’s emergency planning Councillor, voiced his continuing faith in the decision to close Magdalen Bridge.
He said that the decision was part of a “multi-agency agreement following forty injuries three years ago”
“10,000 people descending upon the bridge would be disrupting, whether the bridge is closed or open, the disruption is the same.
Officially the bridge is closed from 3am until 9am but in reality we only close it from 0530am to 06.45am.“The closure of Magdalen Bridge will make no difference to people as they will congregate under the tower rather than on the bridge itself.”
However, many remain unconvinced of the success of such policies. One first year student from University College described the students who jumped as “foolhardy” but added, “If they want to jump, a few men in yellow jackets won’t stop them.”
Every year the bridge attracts an estimated 10 000 people, who gather there to celebrate May morning and hear the Magdalen College Choir sing the Hymnus Eucharisticus. However, it has become a recent tradition for students to jump off Magdalen Bridge, a dangerous activity that has caused both the police and Oxford City Council a great deal of time and money.
This decision came after mass injuries in 2005 with revellers jumping and subsequently breaking limbs; ten were sent to hospital. Magdalen Bridge is an important connecting road between Cowley and the High Street. Last year, the bridge was closed from 3am until 9am, costing £10,000 and disrupting traffic for most of the day.
