Me at the Kelston Toll Road doing one of many interviews since the road opened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the awful rains at the beginning of the year the land at Kelston started slipping down the hill. At the Kelston Road the movement was going on at a dept of 7 metres and the effect on the road was to open a wide and deep crack. We had to close the road. This is a main comuter route between Bath and Bristol and the closure caused a large diversion of 14 miles to get round it. Inconvient and time consuming and it affected the village of Kelston particularly badly.

The Council started monitoring the landslip and exploring possible repairs for when the land stopped moving. The land slip did not actually stop till mid June. However during this time local business man Mike Watts wanted a temporary relief road built. He got together with the local landowner and built a temporary toll road above the landslip which opened as a Toll Road at the end of July at £2 per trip.

This was built without planning permission. Luckily the retrospective application is now coming in. The Council itself could not have done this temporary road as the construction is not upto highway standards. Still it is proving popular with motorists and from the Council point of view it is not interfering with the major repair work to the road which has now started.

The Toll road has attracted a lot of media interest from across the country and beyond. Apart from ITV, BBC and Sky there has also been a visit from German ZDF TV. Also every radio station in the area has covered the story. Mike Watts has worked well with our Highways team to ensure that safety and efficient working happens.

The full repair which will cost in the order of £2M should be complete before Christmas.