Although locals had campaigned for decades for a new crossing to alleviate the congestion, proposals to create a high-level, fixed bridge bypass right across Holes Bay stalled in 1998. With the development of a 64-acre brownfield site in Hamworthy promising to create 2,000 new homes, the bridge site was relocated to the northern end of Back Water Channel, and the brief reworked to call for an opening bridge across this shorter and more direct route closer to the centre of town.