NEWPORT Transporter Bridge plays a central role in a new short documentary about how the famous landmark has connected the city's residents.

The film, Bridging Lives, focuses on the people who grew up around the bridge, which once served as the main crossing point on the River Usk and now stands as a proud monument to the area's industrial past.

Made by director William Gaunt, the film contains interviews with a bridge engineer, people from the community, and a champion boxer who once used the 55-metre towers as a training ground before a bout.

Martin Newman still works on the Transporter Bridge as an engineer.

He told the documentary the landmark was “a way of life – it just adopts you”.

“The best part of Newport is meeting the people living there,” he said in the film, adding that he spends so much time talking about the bridge, his girlfriend “gives me daggers”.

“She thinks I love the bridge more than her – but I do,” he joked.

There are also interviews with the daughter of another Transport Bridge worker, as well as Pam Glover, a Pill resident whose father worked in the nearby port.

Boxer Steve Sims shares his memories of growing up in Newport and using the bridge to cross the Usk, and says his trainer had a clever ploy for preparing him for one match, encouraging him to run up and down the bridge every morning for a fortnight.

“It has the hardest training session I’d ever done,” he tells the film.