Roadworks continue at Harley Hill

Road closures have been scheduled for Sunday mornings from 1 November

The A458 at Harley Hill has been plagued with landslides for many years, despite extensive (and expensive) work to stabilise the rock face.

After months of waiting, another attempt at permanently stabilising rocks at Harley Hill near Much Wenlock started on 26 October.

The work is expected to take five weeks, and is likely to involve some road closures.

A survey published in July revealed faults within the rock above the road.

Work to start in rock falls area

The A458 between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth has been down to one lane at Harley Hill since a landslip there in April, the fourth to occur since major safety work was completed last year.

The problems began in June 2007 when the road was closed because of fears that rocks could fall onto the roadway. Shropshire County Council ordered an in-depth survey into the state of the bank.

Complaints from traders

On 3 June 2008 the road was closed for six weeks of remedial work to stabilise the rock face. This left local people and commuters facing an extra 10 to 20 minutes driving to avoid the works on one of Shropshire's busiest routes.

The work involved removing 16,000 tonnes of rock from the cliffs either side of the road, using huge earthmoving equipment.

Since major work in June 2008 there have been four instances of landslips

The length of the works brought complaints from local traders, in particular Graham Marchant of the Plume of Feathers pub and Nick Murphy, the manager of Harley Nursery plant centre who said their businesses had been badly affected by the road closure.

In July, the county council paid for people in Much Wenlock to stage a street market to apologise for the road works.

On 1 August, 2008 the road was re-opened, a week ahead of schedule, but just over a month later, it closed again for a short time.

On 6 February 2009 there was another landslip. This was blamed on part of an old quarry collapsing and was not connected to the stabilisation works carried out the previous summer.

A week later, rocks fell onto the road again. It was not as serious as the previous fall and the road was not totally closed. It's believed cold weather had destabilised the old quarry working above the road.

16,000 tonnes of rock was removed from Harley Hill in June 2008

On 24 April, there was another heavy fall and council engineers examined the site to try and determine how it happened.

Brian Bennett, Shropshire Council's highways manager, said the survey had been completed and plans were in place to prevent further rockfalls.

"We are hoping to do some drape netting which catches any loose rock. There's another area where we need to put dowels in through the layers," he said.

He explained that the metal dowell rods would hold all the layers of rock together and hopefully prevent any more landslips.