Progress on the A591?

After the recent flooding Cumbria County Council has been working hard get the roads and river crossing re-open. It's not been helped by their legal department whose temporary road closure notices lead to a bit of a storm on social media and ended up with the council issuing this statement yesterday morning:

It has come to the council's attention that legal road closure notices which have been put up where roads have been closed following flooding refer to roads being closed for UP TO 18 months. It is important to understand that these are standard legal notices; they DO NOT provide a guide to how long the road will actually be closed.

It is standard practice when the council makes a legal order to close a road, that the order has effect for 18 months. This allows us to work on the road, open it, and if subsequent issues are discovered, re-close it without getting a new road closure order.

We are working to open all roads as quickly as possible and do not anticipate roads being closed for 18 months.

To which everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

We've been keeping track of what remains closed and we have a page on the site detailing the most significant issues if you're trying to get around Lakeland, especially if you're trying to go on one of our walks and we're all too aware that there's much to be done.

By far the most significant of these (although all of them are significant to someone) must be the closure of the A591 which is the spine road through the Lake District. The photo in this tweet by @BlencathraFSC illustrates the before and after state of the road:

It's closed at the southern end of Thirlmere between Dunmail Raise and Wythburn thus dividing the Lake District in two. The only local alternative route is via the Kirkstone Pass - although this will also close in winter conditions leaving you with little option other than going via Kendal and the M6 to Penrith and the A66 which is a huge detour.

The council issued a second press release late yesterday which updated everyone on their progress across the county. It's well worth a read if there's a local issue which concerns you. Of the A591 they said:

On the A591 hundreds of tonnes of debris have been cleared by county council and military personnel over the weekend. Visual inspections have been undertaken and structural assessments, including ground investigations, have now started. The results of these assessments are needed before we can be confident about the timescale for repairing the road.

We are also assessing options for temporary measures which could allow people to travel past the damaged sections of road and reconnect the north and south ends. These are being developed as a matter of urgency and more detail will be available once their feasibility has been established.

And indeed @FellRambler posted this tweet which shows some sort of drilling rig on site which ties up with the ground investigations they mention.

So we keep our fingers firmly crossed. Meanwhile across the whole of Cumbria work continues to get things back to normal. Businesses, roads and bridges are re-opening and things will slowly return to normal and we will continue to keep an eye on things as much as we can.

Tagged: news

You can comment on this post in our forum.