Part of new £49m Gedling Access Road to close due to pothole

The road cost £49m to build and only opened in March 2022

A £49m road in Nottinghamshire will be partly closed while a pothole is fixed.

The Gedling Access Road - officially named Colliery Way - opened on 22 March, with the county council saying it hoped a pothole would not appear for "something like 10 years".

But a pothole was found on 22 December, nine months to the day after it opened.

A section up to the Lambley Lane junction will be closed from 19:00 on Wednesday until 05:00 GMT on Thursday for the repair work to take place.

The road was initially due to open in autumn 2021 and was budgeted at £40m, but price increases fuelled by the coronavirus pandemic pushed the project back and costs up.

'Major embarrassment'

The Conservative-led Nottinghamshire County Council said the pothole was part of wider damage to the road surface and caused by "badly-fitted farm machinery".

The council is currently in a warranty agreement with its contractor Balfour Beatty regarding the repairs.

Last year Gary Wood, head of highways and transport at the council, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the authority hoped a pothole would not appear on the road for "something like 10 years".

Helen-Ann Smith, deputy leader of the Independent Alliance at County Hall, said the discovery of the defect was a "major embarrassment" for the authority.

"This £49m flagship road was completed massively over budget but was hailed as an example of the council's new-found prowess at building roads," she said.