Damage caused by badgers to a road ‘has turned out to be much more severe than previously thought,’ a highway authority has said.
Lincolnshire County Council had planned to carry out repairs to the A52 Seaholme Road in Mablethorpe under a 48-hour road closure last weekend after badgers dug under the structure.
The original plan was for expert teams to move the badgers and seal up their sett but while the specialists were under the road securing a known set of tunnels, a second set was found.
The newly discovered tunnels are 'a full 1-1.5m deep' and have run under the second half of the road, under the utilities buried at the site, which is why they were not found by the first survey, the council said.
It said it will not now be able to lift the road closure and return to temporary traffic lights as first planned and that, because of the extra excavation, and the nearby A1104 roadworks, it ‘has had to come up with a new plan, speedily’.
Seaholme Road will remain under full closure while the new set of badger tunnels is dealt with, and the road reinstatement works are carried out against a deadline of the end of the month, because of the conditions of the licence from Natural England.
Richard Davies, the council’s executive member for highways, said: ‘The frustration with getting these badger works sorted is growing. We are working as hard as we can to restore this road so that the people of Mablethorpe can get on with their daily lives in the way they expect.
‘We can’t move the badgers without a road closure, Natural England also says that we must finish the work by the end of November otherwise we can’t get this collapse repaired until next year.
‘And now we find that there’s more tunnels, this time under the rest of the road. And this is going to complicate matters further, not in small part because of the restrictions placed upon us.
‘Whilst the badgers are being very well accommodated, Mablethorpe road users are having to bear the brunt of some serious disruption in their area. It feels very unfair.’
The council said it plans to have the road open again by 20 November, ‘but with the caveat that any more currently unforeseen factors may push this date further towards the end of the month’.
Cllr Davies added: ‘Because everything has to be completed by the end of the month, we can’t try a temporary traffic light fix to ease traffic flow because if it doesn’t work and the badgers’ damage can’t be fixed quickly enough, then there is the risk that the road won’t be useable until next July.'
