Melbury Abbas road buried under landslip reopens

Dorset County Council said the landslip had displaced concrete barriers put in to stabilise the slopes

A road that was buried under 50 tonnes of soil after a major landslip has reopened.

The C13, which connects Blandford and Shaftesbury, at Dinah's Hollow was closed on 8 March.

Specialist engineers have been working for four weeks to reopen the busy rural route.

A longer-term solution using tension wire and mesh and at a cost of £2m is planned to stabilise the steep banks, Dorset County Council said.

Environment councillor Peter Finney said: "It is a costly exercise [and] it really is going to be the only solution, we think, to stabilise the banks."

A diagram of a cross section of the road and slopes at Dinah's Hollow

The road was closed for more than a year between April 2014 and July 2015 because of concerns about unstable slopes.

It reopened with CCTV cameras, a reduced width and temporary traffic lights in place but was closed again in March after the latest ground movement.

A two-mile (3km) diversion, via the A350 Blandford to Shaftesbury road, has been in place.