Call for investigation after 'huge' road closure delays

Councillor Roger Dobson wants to see an investigation being carried out into the delays

Calls have been made for an investigation to be carried out into a temporary road closure still in place one year on which is causing "huge inconvenience" to residents and businesses.

Liberal Democrat councillor Roger Dobson wants Cumberland Council to investigate the "failure" to repair the C1026 road between Heads Nook and Faugh in his ward of Corby and Hayton, near Brampton.

Mr Dobson said residents were told the road would be closed for seven weeks so subsidence could be repaired, bringing to an end a one-way system that had been in place there for three years. But one year on, the road is still closed.

He submitted a question for councillor Denise Rollo, who is responsible for connected places at the Labour-led Cumberland Council, which is due to be heard at a meeting on Tuesday.

In his question submitted ahead of the meeting, Mr Dobson said on 24 July the road would have been "closed for exactly one year to the huge inconvenience of residents and significant cost to local businesses".

He said he wanted to know when the road would reopen and added the authority had been up until now "remarkably reluctant to explain" the delays.

'Investigate failures'

Mr Dobson called on Mrs Rollo to "initiate a thorough investigation" to identify any failures so that other communities were not "unnecessarily subjected to a similar experience".

He added he was also concerned about the accuracy of the estimated £187,000 costs of the roadworks and was asking for a "revised estimate".

The authority's full council is due to hear the question at its meeting on Tuesday.