A councillor is worried that a bridge could collapse after rail bosses admitted it “cannot sustain significant footfall”.

Network Rail will be closing Preston footbridge, which sits over Faversham railway station during the Hop Festival weekend “for reasons of public safety”.

But the weekend-only closure has sparked calls of concern for the rest of the year and reports that it was meant to be replaced more than three years ago.

The Hop Festival is the 27th of its kind, and is expected to attract tens of thousands of music and ale fans into the town.

In a statement from Network Rail released to town councillor David Simmons, they say: “Our structures team has confirmed that the bridge will be closed as it has significant defects of corrosion and loss of section and is weak and it cannot sustain significant footfall where groups of people may congregate.

“Therefore we must close it during periods where there may be groups of people or special interest like the Hop Festival.”

Cllr Simmons (Con) says that Network Rail had announced it would be replacing the bridge three years ago, but nothing has come to fruition.

He believes that it should not just be the Hop Festival when the bridge closes, especially with the Faversham Food Festival and carnival coming up.

He said: “What Network Rail is saying is that they are worried about large numbers of people congregating there over the Hop Festival, especially as there is very often a steam train which pulls into the station and people have in the past used the bridge to take photographs.

“My concern is that they said they were going to replace the bridge three years ago but this has never happened.

“If it is dangerous at Hop Festival, then it must be dangerous at other times too.

“Just to compound the issue, there are ongoing problems with the subway and people are refusing to use it and would rather use the bridge.

“It strikes me that if there is corrosion, it could collapse at any time.

“The issue here is predominantly people’s safety and Network Rail must do something about this.”

Cllr Simmons says he is now putting pressure on Network Rail to take action.

Cllr Ted Wilcox (Con) added: “I find it incredible that it is unsafe with lots of people on it and that will only happen at the Hop Festival, it makes you want to organise a protest march with hundreds of people and walk repeatedly across it.

“Interestingly, we were told some years ago that it was going to be replaced urgently.

“I just hope that no one gets injured by it because if it really is unsafe it should be replaced before it hurts pedestrians using it or passengers and staff going under it.”

Spokesman for Network Rail Chris Denham said: “We are aware that the bridge in need of repair but there is absolutely no danger of it collapsing.

“We just take a precaution over Hop Festival because of the unusual amount of people using the bridge over that weekend.”