For the longest time, the Humber Bridge was known to be a barrier when it came to the development and trade of the local interests and the two banks. Due to this, the mentioned parties ended up campaigning for the construction of the bridge which took over 100 years before the bridge was finally constructed. In the year 1872, the very first proposal of a tunnel scheme was made. The scheme was then promoted by different businesses and Hull merchants who were not happy with the services that they were getting from the New Holland ferry crossing. Over the next 100 years that followed, there were a number of different proposals that were made with the main effort of trying to build the Humber Bridge.
In the year 1928, the Hull city council drew up a plan that was for building a multi-span truss bridge which was supposed to be at least 4 miles west of the city of Hull and was going between Barton-upon-Humber which was in the south and Hessle which was on the north side. However, due to the great depression of late 1920, the scheme sank never to be found again after it was seriously hit by the financial problems which came as a result of the depression.
In the year 1959, the construction of a suspension bridge was finally granted which was as a result of the passing of the act of Humber Bridge. However, it was only until the year 1973 when the work on the bridge finally begun. The main reasons as to why the bridge was chosen were mainly two. The first reason was that the Humber has a navigable channel and a shifting bed along whereby there was a craft that always kept of changing. Having a suspension bridge that had no pillars to support it would not be able to perform the tasks that the bridge was builtfor. The second reason was that because of the topography and the geology of the area, the cost that would have been needed in the construction of a tunnel would have been extremely expensive.
Work that was carried out on the construction took place for around eight years. During this period, there was the use of tons of concrete and steel, and during times of peak activity, more than one thousand staff and workers had to be hired so that there was a smooth flow of activities. In 1981, the month of June 24th when the first traffic crossed the bridge, many people felt that a lot of their dreams were fulfilled and this was especially so for the local people. With this came a lot of happy memories especially during the official opening of the Humber Bridge.
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