At the time of its construction it was the longest span steel girder bridge in the UK and the first to use a composite lightweight concrete deck.

[1] The bridge was constructed by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company with Miller Group as the foundation and concrete sub-contractor, while it was designed by Freeman Fox & Partners, with the team being led by Dr Oleg Kerensky and the resident engineer H Binnie.

The bridge consists of a pair of steel box girders (one under each carriageway) 4.3 m (14 ft) wide overlaid by a lightweight concrete deck.

It also forms part of the important east coast road corridor from Edinburgh through to Dundee and Aberdeen.

The bridge spans the river, the Dundee-Perth railway line, a number of warehouses and the A85 high above the surrounding plain.