A Riddlesden trader is furious after a bridge which gives many people access to his premises was shut without warning.

Ian Hewitt, who owns the butcher’s shop in Bar Lane, said he arrived for work on Monday morning to find the Bar Lane bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal had suddenly been closed.

Cars and pedestrians were instead using the Granby Lane bridge.

A spokesman for British Waterways apologised, but said the swing bridge’s motor needed urgent repairs.

Mr Hewitt argued this fault had not been an emergency, so businesses and residents should have been given some advance notice.

Commenting on Monday morning he said he’d only had one customer so far that day. “I’m very angry,” he said. “I’d got all my meat in for this week and now who am I going to sell it to? If I’d known about the closure I might just as well have had a holiday. I’m wasting my time here.

“I was told the bridge hadn’t actually broken down, so it wasn’t an emergency. But they didn’t even have the courtesy to tell us anything about a closure.

“The first I knew about it was when I came down at 9am for work.”

District councillor Doreen Lee, who lives in Riddlesden, said she was disgusted by the lack of notification.

“I gather this was known about by the authorities three weeks ago,” she said. ‘‘If they knew then that they would have to close the bridge why didn’t they tell anyone?’’ She added she understood the workmen had applied for a three-week closure but hoped the problem could be fixed in five days.

Iain Weston, maintenance manager for British Waterways North West, said: “During a routine maintenance check on Bar Lane Swing Bridge, we were forced to undertake an emergency closure to repair a damaged motor.

“We do fully sympathise with the users of the bridge and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. But we are confident we took the most effective short and long-term solution.”

A spokesman for Bradford Council said the decision to close the bridge was taken by British Waterways, which owns the structure.