Drought impact: Damaged roads, disappearing rivers

Spalding Road in Crowland has been closed because of cracks caused by dry weather

More than 400 roads in Lincolnshire have cracked and crumbled during this summer's prolonged spell of dry and hot weather.

Engineers have said the soil beneath many of the county's routes has dried out, and lost its strength and structure, which they have called a "unique event".

Some roads, including Spalding Road in Crowland, have been closed for public safety while ways of repairing the extensive damage are considered.

The summer of 2025 has been the warmest on record, according to The Met Office, with parts of Lincolnshire receiving less than 30% of their average rainfall.

Highways engineer Mark Heaton, of Lincolnshire County Council

"The roads have moved," said Lincolnshire County Council highways engineer Mark Heaton. "We need to work out why they have moved, but it's largely down to Lincolnshire's poor geology."

Fenland areas have been worst hit.

Mr Heaton has been working with the British Geological Survey to better understand the nature of the soil beneath the roads.

He said the ongoing research was using a technology called Lidar: "We've found old water courses [beneath the roads] dating back to the Ice Age. These may be causing weaknesses in the soil."

He added that it was very challenging for the authority's teams to make the affected roads safe for members of the public.

The soil type beneath roads in Lincolnshire's Fens has made them especially prone to collapse

Met Office scientist Dr Emily Carlisle said: "Provisional Met Office statistics show that summer 2025 is officially the warmest on record with a mean temperature of 16.10°C, surpassing the previous record of 15.76°C set in 2018.

It has also been an exceptionally dry period, particularly in England and analysts are attributing this to human-induced climate change.

Head of climate attribution at the Met Office, Dr Mark McCarthy, said: "Our analysis shows that the summer of 2025 has been made much more likely because of the greenhouse gases humans have released since the industrial revolution."

Kilnsea Wetlands, an important bird habitat near Spurn, have dried up.

Kilnsea Wetlands in East Yorkshire is an important source of food and water for thousands of wading birds.

But the habitat near to Spurn has completely dried up in the baking summer heat.

Andrew Gibson from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust says this is concerning in the short term but also a sign of how the climate is changing:

"Wading birds need a certain amount of water for feeding and for their security," Mr Gibson said. "We may well have a wet winter, but the birds need water now. Climate change is giving us boom and bust."

Andrew Gibson from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust said important habitats for wading birds have been lost during the extremely dry summer

In some places, entire rivers and the aquatic life they support have disappeared in the drought.

The East Glen River at Manthorpe, near Bourne in Lincolnshire, is nowhere to be seen and it is possible to walk along the river bed, past a series of signs warning against swimming and diving.

Local resident Richard Hartley noted that the same river had overtopped its banks during the flooding of last January, causing extensive flooding.

The East Glen River at Manthorpe, near Bourne, has disappeared in the drought

Warning signs on the banks of the dried-up East Glen River in Lincolnshire advise 'no swimming' and 'no diving'.

Mr Heaton and his highways engineering team now face the challenging task of repairing damage to at least 400 roads in Lincolnshire: "We are going to have to go away and come up with a new engineering solution to tackle these problems, it's not like repairing a pothole," he said.

Whatever engineering solution they find for the county's crumbling roads will be a burden on budgets.

"It's going to be very expensive for Lincolnshire," he said. "We do get a budget from [the] government to look after our road network, but that doesn't take into account the poor geology we're now finding beneath our roads."

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