A LAST ditch attempt is to be made to get Dorset County Council to rethink controversial plans to replace the Avon Causeway bridge.

The Wessex Federation of Small Businesses says it has a plan that could save the county £500,000 and reduce the length of time the road will be shut.

Federation members in Christchurch have fought the scheme from the outset claiming that closing the causeway will cause traffic chaos on the official diversion route through town.

The county council has agreed to reduced closure to 18 weeks from July 10.

But the federation, headed by regional organiser Colin Jamieson, has now employed a panel of experts to address the county council in Dorchester on Wednesday.

They are Don Wark, a former chief planning officer with Southampton City Council, Richard Collingridge, a former conservation officer with English Nature, former Bournemouth highways engineer Philip Casely and another former planning officer, Peter Chivers.

They will put forward the case for a prefabricated bridge to be dropped in on the same alignment as the existing badly rusted structure .

Mr Jamieson said the current bridge could be cut up into sections on site and taken away for dismantling, the abutments checked and made sound and the replacement craned into place.

"That bridge can be produced by a local company at a fraction of the cost," said Mr Jamieson.

"There might be a slight amendment to the planning application and it can still be done this year."

He has spoken to experts at John Reid and Sons structural engineers in Christchurch, which has carried out bridge projects worldwide, and been told that it is feasible.

"We reckon we can save nearly half a million pounds and, as the council is strapped for cash, every half a million saved can be used for other things."

In addition, the job would cause less environmental damage, could be done in about four weeks and need not be done in the summer, as the current scheme demands.

And he said that keeping to the old alignment of the road would reduce traffic speeds.

"It is its own chicane. Let it be that," he added.

He is urging concerned people to give their views to those listed on the www.fsbwessex.com website.