The completion of a railway bridge in Bolton has been hit by a row over who is responsible for additional costs to the multimillion-pound project. Costs have doubled to £4.5M for the scheme to build a new arched bridge over the railway line at Newport Street, to replace a 100-year-old one which could not handle today’s traffic. Problems with the structure, including cracks on some of the footways’ paving slabs, have delayed its opening to two-way traffic. However, the main area of contention is the £250,000 cost of replacing a failed bearing. Cllr ~Roger Hayes~,  Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council's executive member for environmental services, said: ‘Network Rail managed construction of the bridge and, as far as the fault in the bearing is concerned, we believe it should be responsible for putting it right.’ Network Rail said it had been difficult to produce a comprehensive estimate of the scheme’s costs, due to the fact that procurement of the bridge scheme had been carried out at the same time as the design process. A spokesman said discussions were continuing with Bolton council over responsibility for the additional expenditure. He added that the cracks in paving slabs were a result of poor workmanship, and would be replaced by Network Rail at no extra cost.