Image caption The Forth Road Bridge was closed for much of December after a crack was discovered in a truss end link

Engineers in charge of Forth Road Bridge maintenance wanted to replace a component which broke, causing a three-week closure, but "did not have the funding", MSPs have been told.

Former bridge engineer Barry Colford gave evidence to a Holyrood inquiry into December's closure.

MSPs heard budget cuts in 2011 and the axing of tolls had an impact on the capital budget for the bridge.

Nicola Sturgeon had previously insisted that cuts were not a factor..

Mr Colford said he wanted the truss end links to be replaced in 2010/11.

The infrastructure and capital investment committee heard from several witnesses from the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (Feta), the body which formerly managed the bridge.

Former Feta convener Lesley Hinds said the body's capital grant was reduced by 58% after the spending review in 2011.

'Not a wish list'

Replacing the truss end links, one of which cracked in December 2015 causing the closure of the bridge, was part of a capital investment plan put together by Feta in 2010/11.

Mr Colford said the capital plan was "not a wish list", but a list of things which he considered "needed" to be done.

He said it was difficult to say if the bridge would have had to be closed during the replacement works, but said people would have been warned to expect disruption.

Image caption Bridge engineer Barry Colford told MSPs he wanted the truss end links replaced altogether in 2010/11

Image caption Former Feta boss Lesley Hinds said the group's capital budget had been cut by 58% in 2011

In any case, Mr Colford said Feta had to "reprioritise" and be "realistic" about changes to funding.

He described the risk to the truss end links as "operational", although he said this was "very subjective", and said the failure would "probably" have still occurred had they been strengthened instead of replaced outright.

He said Feta had a close working relationship with Transport Scotland, but took its own decisions.

However, Mr Colford said he was "not in control of the funding of my destiny" after bridge tolls were abolished in 2008, which left Feta relying on funding from the Scottish government and Transport Scotland.

Former Feta board member Phil Wheeler, who was a Lib Dem councillor in Edinburgh at the time, said he felt the removal of bridge tolls was a "rush job" which had not been "thought through".

Political row

Following the closure of the bridge, Ms Sturgeon said it was "absolutely" not true that cuts to maintenance budgets had caused the failure.

She said "the maintenance that has been required to be done on the bridge has been done", and said the crack which occurred was "unforeseen and unforeseeable".

Transport minister Derek Mackay became embroiled in a row with Labour over past work on the bridge, which included the release of emails between Ms Hinds and Mr Colford.

He also insisted that the fault was not linked to a drop in finance due to the ending of bridge tolls, and claimed replacing the truss end links would have caused a "lengthy and unnecessary closure".

Labour's Alex Rowley said the government "cannot continue to live in denial" after hearing the committee's evidence, saying "it is their cuts which led to the Forth Road Bridge shutting down".

He said: "For weeks the SNP government in Edinburgh told us that cuts to the maintenance budget of the Forth Road Bridge had nothing to do with the bridge's eventual closure.

"The reality is the SNP made short-sighted cuts to essential maintenance budgets which meant that an essential piece of infrastructure was shut down at a crucial time for the Scottish economy."