Snake Pass' future at stake as officials say repairs are "unsustainable"
It comes as the route through the Peak District is set to close this month
Last updated 29th Sep 2024
The future of Snake Pass may be at stake as officials admit the periods between major repairs is getting smaller and smaller.
The route connects Manchester and Sheffield through the Derbyshire Peak District, but often sees diversions and delays due to accidents on the troublesome road.
As well as this, the isolated weather-hit route is constantly moving, having been built on historic shale landslip deposits, causing logistical problems for Derbyshire County Council.
It is often the first route to close and last to reopen each winter due to bouts of snow on the higher reaches of the peaks, with laborious diversions then required for the vital thoroughfare between two of the UK’s major cities, used by 30,000 vehicles a week.
On a visit to the route this week, Julian Gould, the council’s highways director, and Cllr Charlotte Cupit, cabinet member for highways assets and transport, outlined the challenges the authority faces and what it is aiming to do within its constrained resources.
They detail that the route is in a constant state of slipping, with “interventions” now needed more frequently than ever before, now down to six to 12 months from a previous typical gap of eight years, due to increasing bouts of heavy rain caused by climate change.
With the council constrained by a highways capital budget of £27 million per year, which needs to cover the whole county, Snake Pass solutions are not able to be as effectively permanent as would be preferred.
A 7.5-tonne weight restriction remains in place on the route to reduce the strain on the slipping surface, with no imminent end in sight for that restriction until major improvements can be made.
The Snake Pass route will be temporarily closed again from October 14-25 for surface repairs to the Gillott Hey and Alport landslip sections.
This will involve raised sections of the rippling road being trimmed off and a new top layer being added, in a tentative bid to avoid adding more weight to the under-pressure route.
A long-term fix for the Alport landslip alone would cost “hundreds of millions of pounds” says Mr Gould, which the council will never be able to fund and will hinge on Government intervention.
Cllr Cupit and Mr Gould are clear that they would like to keep the route open but that a “cataclysmic” landslip, which would be near-impossible to fund or fix, could never be ruled out.
Mr Gould said: “The period between interventions is now less and less. It won’t be sustainable long term without significant intervention but county councils can’t fund that level of intervention.”
He said if the interventions were needed every few weeks – instead of nearly annually – the council would need to change tack significantly, but it has not yet reached that point.
At Gillott Hey, the crash barriers for the road itself are slipping down the hillside. Brackets holding up the infrastructure, which are supposed to point upwards, now lean backwards and sideways.
Mr Gould said: “Long-term these fixes are not cost-effective. We are doing our best to manage it within the constraints of the budget we have got and are doing our best to retain access.
“We can’t rule out the possibility that it could be closed. If there was a major landslip it would be beyond what we can do and central or regional funding would be needed.
“It would take a significant operation to stop the road moving and all we can look to do at the moment is to slow down the movement.”
Residents have often feared the route will go the way of the former road along Mam Tor, which slipped off the hillside and was too costly to repair. It subsequently abandoned in 1977, leaving the well-known Winnats Pass as the only route through the surrounding hills.
Mr Gould says Snake Pass is not a “dissimilar situation” but that issues at Mam Tor were more logistically difficult with water moving under the site 30 metres down, and without the technical interventions which are now available.
A major intervention on the route would see a potential six-month closure of Snake Pass, he said, with retained access to be difficult due to the intensive nature of the required works.