RAIL bosses have been left baffled after a new bridge opened less than two years ago is already in need of resurfacing.

Network Rail said it was "flabbergasted" to discover cracks appearing in the surface of Challow Road Bridge near Wantage in the past month.

The firm said Challow was the only one out of 40 bridges it had replaced as part of its electrification of the Great Western Mainline on which anything like this had happened, and it still did not know what had gone wrong.

Spokesman Dean Shaw said: "We have altered or replaced over 40 bridges as part of the Greater West Programme to electrify the railway, and this is the only one on which anything like this has happened.

"As such we're keen to understand what’s gone wrong, to fix things and make sure that nothing like this happens again."

The company had applied to close the bridge for two weeks from October 2 to repair it, but Oxfordshire County Council would not allow the A417 – the main road between Wantage and Faringdon – to be closed for that time.

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey also objected to the road being closed and contacted the firm to demand the bridge be kept open.

He said: "I was very surprised to hear this news: I opened the new bridge in late 2014 less than two years ago and it seems incredible that the road already needed to be resurfaced, so I wanted to check with Network Rail that this was really necessary.

"The closure of the bridge when it was replaced caused huge disruption, and the A417 is a vital road."

Network Rail has now postponed the repair work to work out a solution that meets that county's approval.