Two-year landslip closure 'a disaster' for town

A key road in a Devon town has now been closed for two years after a landslip damaged a supporting wall.

Warfleet Road in Dartmouth has been shut to traffic since February 2024 and a four-mile (6.4km) diversion has been in place since.

Lindsay Ellwood, from the local campaign group Warfleet Warriors Action Group, said the closure was having "a tremendous impact" on the town.

Road-owner Devon County Council (DCC) said there was an "ongoing legal process", and it was doing everything it could to resolve the matter.

DCC had said it could not carry out any work to the road until the privately-owned wall had been repaired, saying it was the "responsibility of the landowner and their insurance company".

In a new statement, it said: "There is currently an ongoing legal process with the wall owner's insurers, and we are doing everything we can to resolve the matter.

"We apologise for the inconvenience that the continued closure of the road is causing."

However, the ownership of the wall is currently being disputed, the BBC understands.

Landowner Chris Chambers, who has not commented on the latest, previously told the BBC the reason the wall failed was because the road above was in "such poor condition".

Lindsay Ellwood said no work had been done to shore up the road and prevent it from worsening over the last two years.

She added: "We've been promised many, many times since March 2024 that the work would be done, and that Devon County Council would do it and then claim any costs that they needed to claim.

"Here we are, two years later, and nothing's been done, not actually even any remedial work on the road to stop it getting any worse."

Helen Boyd, who owns Stone Tree Dairy and Higher Swannaton Farm in Dartmouth, said the road closure was a "disaster" for businesses, residents, and tourists.

She said: "We have had to... rescue very many vehicles now that have got stuck on Swannaton Road.

"Now, we don't mind doing that, of course; it's a neighbourly thing to do.

"But it shouldn't be an expectation that we will drop everything, get the tractor out and rescue vehicles when they get stuck on that road all the time.

"Not through their own fault necessarily because they're being redirected that way because they've got no alternative."

Follow BBC Devon on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.