Second landslip on Derbyshire road closed for 22 months sees further delays to reopening

The reopening of a Derbyshire road forced to close last year due to a landslip was delayed this week after being hit by another slip.
Lea Road has been plagued by problems since being forced to close in January 2020.Lea Road has been plagued by problems since being forced to close in January 2020.
Lea Road has been plagued by problems since being forced to close in January 2020.

Lea Road, which runs from Cromford to Lea in the Derbyshire Dales, was closed in January 2020 after the first landslip. Engineers making a routine inspection on Monday found that there had been a second slip, with a temporary piling platform shifting around two meters down towards the river.

Councillor Kewal Singh Athwal, Cabinet Member for Highways Assets and Transport at Derbyshire County Council, said: “This is a bitter disappointment for everyone involved, and I know it will be for all those who live locally and have not been able to use Lea Road for so long.

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“Our engineers are working with specialist contractors to find the best solution to fix this new damage and get this project back on track. Unfortunately, the climate is not being kind to us, and the heavy rain over the weekend meant that work we had done was swept away.

“We are doing all we can to find a solution, and as soon as we have a plan and new timescales, we will let local people know. We are so sorry for the inconvenience this is causing and thank everyone for their patience.”

Specialist contractors had started working on the site in February of this year, aiming to stabilise the first landslip, shore up the bank and resurface the road.

However, they were forced to pause work in May, when engineers found that the landslip was still moving, and a cracked sewer pipe was running underneath.

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The reopening of the road was expected this summer, but Derbyshire County Council pushed this back. In August, they estimated that the earliest completion date for the works on Lea Road would be spring or summer 2022.

Further delays to the reopening of the road are now expected. The council is in discussions with specialist contractors and design engineers to revise the installation method of piles, and parts of the design, to take into consideration the reduced and still reducing stability of the slope.