 The new Twickenham Bridge opened in 1933, but Richmond Bridge was still unable to handle the volume of traffic, so in 1933 Sir Harley Dalrymple-Hay proposed possible methods for widening the bridge without significantly affecting its appearance. The cheapest of Dalrymple-Hay's proposals, to transfer the footpaths onto stone corbels projecting from the sides of the bridge thus freeing the entire width for vehicle traffic, was rejected on aesthetic grounds, and a proposal to widen the bridge on both sides was rejected as impractical. A proposal to widen the bridge on the upstream side was settled on as causing the least disruption to nearby buildings, and in 1934 it was decided to widen the bridge by 11 feet (3.4 m), at a cost of £ 73,000 (about £ 4.67 million in 2016).
