A section of road in Essex that was closed earlier this year after being undermined by badgers is likely to remain closed for another year, residents have been told.
In February, Southend-on-Sea City Council closed the southside footway on Cliff Parade between Leigh Hill and Avenue Road and a small section of the westbound carriageway lane after a survey raised safety concerns over the ongoing deterioration of the carriageway and footway.
Access to one residential street, Seaview Road, from Cliff Parade was also closed off to reduce vehicle queuing on Cliff Parade and keep traffic flowing.
This was caused largely by badgers in a sett below undercutting the cliff and causing instability. However, the council said it had not been able to carry out repairs because it required approval from Natural England to close the sett, which was not possible at the time due to badger hibernation.
Setts are closed by fitting one-way doors to their entrances, allowing badgers to leave but not re-enter.
The council’s lead engineer has now told residents that its application for a permit is currently with Natural England for approval, after which the authority will begin the process of moving the badgers on in order to begin reconstruction work.
The engineer added: ‘Success in this is not guaranteed, however, and we can only hope the badgers move on of their own accord.
‘This programme of work is only indicative and will not be a quick process. I would anticipate the earliest we would have everything open again would be this time next year due to the uncertainty of how quick the badgers will take to leave the sett and the time it would take to stabilise the carriageway and rebuild the road.’
However, the engineer added that if the badgers fail to leave the sett, ‘there is absolutely nothing we can do as a local authority and we would simply have to reapply for a permit the following year’, explaining that ‘we are incredibly limited in what we can do to move the badgers on as they are a protected species and there would be fines and potential imprisonment imposed on us if we were not to follow the rules’.
