BUSES will have to be banned from using Anlaby Road flyover if urgent repairs are not carried out on the crumbling structure, according to Hull's transport boss.
Hull City Council has applied for a £1.8m grant from the Department for Transport to pay for the repair work.
Councillor Martin Mancey, the local authority's portfolio holder for transport, says he has made clear in the bid that the repairs are essential.
He said: "Bits of concrete are already dropping off the columns that support the road – one of Hull's main highways.
"We don't want to be alarmist – the flyover is not about to collapse any moment.
"But if we do nothing, we would have to apply weight restrictions onto the flyover, which would mean buses not being able to travel down Anlaby Road and you can imagine the disruption that would cause."
The west Hull flyover, close to the KC Stadium, was built in 1965 and is one of the city's key access roads.
Cllr Mancey said he is confident the council's bid meets the criteria for a slice of central Government cash.
He said: "This pot of cash we are looking to tap into is to address what it calls 'pinch points' – effectively, projects to keep traffic moving. Clearly, if we have to place weight restrictions on Anlaby Road, thereby preventing its use by buses and delivery trucks, significant problems will arise."
If the bid is successful, the council would contribute £700,000, and work would start later this year, before winter.
"When you are working with concrete you ideally need warmer conditions," he said. "So work would have to be started before the end of the summer."
Civil engineers recently inspected the flyover, said Cllr Mancey.
"We plan to resurface the road too, but the most costly part of the project will be repairing the concrete supports," he said.
Even if the Guildhall is not successful in its bid, repair work will still go ahead, but at a much slower rate.
Cllr Mancey said: "If the bid is not successful, it would be another pressure for this council, already running on limited resources.
"In terms of the repairs to Anlaby Road flyover, it would then be a slow process.
"If we took £2m out of the budget, it would have a significant impact on other projects, so the work would have to be carried out over three or four years."
Cllr Mancey said, due to the nature of the work, he expected repairs to be carried out in daylight hours. However, he said disruption would be kept to a minimum.
"Traffic might be down to one lane," said Cllr Mancey. "But we would expect nothing like the level of disruption seen with the work in Priory Road."
• Gallery: Flashback pictures of Hull's Anlaby Road flyover
