i knew it... i knew i passed your famous Saab just as you were leaving Royal Wootton Bassett to join the motorway, as an Ex Saab nut myself, i look out for such beasts on the road.....
I hate that junction since they ‘improved’ it. When you come off eastbound and want to go to Wootton Bassett there is a weird gap to aim for between the left to Wroughton and continue clockwise to westbound exit.
When the road between Kununurra and Broome in Western Australia was closed by flooding, the detour on paved roads was 6203km - a fairly optimistic 66 hours
"Take this short route, you can make it in one day. Or you take the scenic detour over flat land. It will bring you there in a bit over a week." "I have time, I will take the detour."
@@justafriend5361 This 100 metre stretch of road is closed and here is the detour live as it happens.... He needs to find and video that road/detour that takes an ever smaller of closed section and an ever longer detour route. Auto Shenanigans Worldwide Tour... Coming soon (or not)
And that is probably the obvious "quick solution". Take a road roller, flatten and compress that track. Add gravel. Cover in tarmac. Job done. Now ok, it might not last so long, but better than nothing. And if you want it to last longer dig a ditch on one side to hold the water and reinforce the opposite side to deter further slippage.
"Starting in Lyneham and ending in Chippenham, however it also starts in Chippenham and ends in Lyneham" 🤣🤣😂 It's this sort of commentary that makes me love this channel.
Look up Galley Hill Road, in Swanscombe, Kent. The chalk spine the road is on collapsed a year ago. the local residents are holding a birthday party for it on friday
Well i never! I've driven/ridden that road loads and somehow never clocked on that it's perched on a spine! Quite impressive from an aerial view, but not really that surprising that it's falling over
@@chrisglover1978 Yikes, near death experience! I bet the entire year it's been closed has been dedicated to Thames Water trying to wriggle out of paying for the rebuild
Does anyone else find themselves liking Jon's videos and then watching them? It all becomes worth it when I hear lines such as "running for about nine and half miles starting in Lyneham and ending in Chippenham. However it also starts in Chippenham and ends in Lyneham.". 🤣🤣🤣
Don’t hold your breath on the final cost and time to completion. This is a public project so double the cost and double the estimated time and you might be near to reality. Great video.
I wonder if they will pre-install the potholes during the build to blend it in with the rest of the roads in the area or if the plan is to allow natural organic ones to self grow
The B5605 in Newbridge near Wrexham, would like to point out that it was closed after a landslip in January 2021, and rebuilding work has yet to start.
That was the main southerly route into/out of Wrexham until the very late 1980s, when they built the new Newbridge bridge, so although it’s a pain in the arse now, it would’ve been a catastrophe if it had happened then. I remember having to go through the middle of Chirk and Newbridge, up the side of Cefn, Rhosymedre and Plas Madoc, then through Ruabon and Johnstown to get on to the Wrexham bypass at Rhostyllen. The only clues left are the dual carriageway in Ruabon and a couple of ghost petrol stations.
As someone who lives in Chippenham and works in Lyneham, I can testify it is indeed a bit annoying! If I’m really feeling fruity I’ll drive home down Clack Hill, but the residents of Bradenstoke are a bit sick of all the traffic so I keep that for a special treat once or twice a month so as not to annoy them too much……
@tiepup they still haven't been approved but my buddy at the consulting firm assures me that my re-election fund will the incredibly happy with the findings. Sounds like we might have to order seven.
Civil engineer (Railway) from the continent here. After a certain amount of years in the business you either get cynical, become a total lunatic, or just run out of forks to give. Or you change to the dark side and believe in „everything will be good, on time, and in budget“. Trust me. If we could transfer our sarcasm into budget Japanese Railways would look like a model train club compared to us.
There’s a nail and a head in there mate, wiltshire council are as much use as t*ts on a fish. The poor pub down the bottom of the hill is struggling like crazy because of the loss of passing custom and whenever you want to go anywhere it usually means taking the much longer diversion via Calne. I can assure you work won’t start this year, I can also assure you it’ll slip again, whilst the construction work didn’t help above (I know the guy who it nearly bankrupt) he did have full permission for all land movements etc. the issue lies in highways and the council in the fact they removed all the trees in the bank that was holding the bank up. I remember them doing it and I said to my old man that the bank would be gone in a few years, hey presto the roots rot and the only thing holding the bank has gone. Cue landslide….
The Council removed the trees?! I assumed it was the developer. Is it the same guy who owns the Lilly Brook site? I wonder if the council did any ground investigation or whether their agri contractor just turned up and started ripping up trees.
Permission should never have been given to undertake that level of building work directly at the top of an already moving - albeit slowly - hillside. Every day I used to drive to work and see the piles of earth being moved beside the garage and wonder if I’d make it safely to the bottom of the hill. It was obvious that something was going to go wrong at some point. The road will now likely never be rebuilt resulting in endless misery for people living in all the tiny lanes around Lyneham, Dauntsey and Wootton Bassett that now see hulking great big lorries, and hundreds of cars and vans every day. Just last week, I viewed a property in one of them. Went on a Saturday - busier than expected but fairly acceptable; went back in the week during rush hour and it was an immediate no. People were flying up and down the road trying to get to Lyneham. It’s affected so many aspects of life in the area. Nobody living locally, who I’ve spoken to, believes it will ever be reopened.
Loving you series on disappearing roads, how long before the Snake Pass slides down the mountain side, already banned large trucks and now several traffic lights as single traffic in places.
I've not been on that road for a while now, but the last time I went on it I noticed a couple of speed restrictions and one bit near the Ladybower which had dropped so far I felt my car's suspension bottom out as I hit it. Given the Woodhead is now so crap as a route across the Pennines, with so much traffic ruining it, I'm thinking the abandoning of the M67 is looking more and more short-sighted
WOW im from ashton under lyne originaly so 30 min drive from the snake pass ( my family still live there but im in bristol now for 18 yrs) ...ANYHOW i digress lol i neevr knew they had put limitations on it now i remeber as a kid in the 70s and 80s going out with my granadad who was a lorry driver (obv unofficaly as hed of got sacked taking me with him if the firm found out lol) he delivered timber on a flatbed truck with just a normal cab ( no sleeping compartment) so did a lot of deliveries across the snake and wood head passes to places such as bakewell, sheffield ect and also did some pick ups from places such as hull docks! ..I suppose now lorrys would have to use wood head OR go the long way round threough stockport onto the A6 or the m62 up through rochdale and huddersfield!
Derbyshire has numerous roads closed due to "land slips" - mostly minor roads, but it takes them years to sort the jobs out. Lea bottom - closed 3 years, reopened 1 year ago, and almost immediately reclosed due to another collapse in Holloway 2 miles away. Still no signs of any repair in Holloway and another section of Lea Bottom has now dropped about 3 inches but so far it remains open as far as Holloway. Chesterfield Road, Beeley - closed for more than 2 years. Rumour has it that this one is never to re-open. Oker road - closed since the start of the pandemic. No signs yet that it is going to get repaired. There are more, but these 3 are local and so I know the details. Glaciers move faster than DDC Highways.
Dauntsey Bank is nearby where the Western Railway passes by (on the same road). That also shifts. I remember my grandad mentioning it often in the 70's (he was retired from the railway on medical grounds). Since then, I've worked with railways for 43 years.
The A3055 west of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight had a landslip and closed the road back in 2012. The A3055 east of Ventnor was closed recently because of a landslip, it's 50/50 if the road will reopen. The A3055 between Shanklin and Chale has a history of landslips and the road being rebuilt or a new route made.
Wow, when I was posted at RAF Lyneham back in the 00's I used to love driving that road. One time when I was on nightshit guard duty I was given the chance to drive the guard Commander's Lotus Elise along it, that was so much fun!!!
I used to drive it several times a week in a classic Mini when I lived in Wootton Bassett and my girlfriend lived in Chippenham. I could get 70mph between the two sharp corners (going downhill) and not end up in the field. Great road when it existed.
@@lilcharlie3130 The only Army at Lyneham were RCT/RLC (47 AD Sqn & 395 AD Tp) who packed the loads for air-dropping - and they were well over the other side of the base, east of the A3102 (Calne Road). Or do you mean a Group Captain???
@@wessexdruid7598 I meant to the op, as he said he was posted to lyneham and wondered if he knew my dad (as you said there were only about 150 boys at lyneham so he might’ve known him) Cool that you know about 47 though, not many even know they were there.
If you're looking at closed roads awaiting repair, another example in the South West would be the A432 between Yate and Downend. Bridge over the M4 built in the 60s to last 120 years. After half of that the bridge is closed already beyond repair and due to be replaced and completed by 2026. Diversion causing traffic chaos, country lanes nearby closed and local road layouts changed in the meantime.
@@rickmancr I didn't realise the temporary measures went that far away. Even so, the Lyde Green roundabout on A4174 and the stretch of Westerleigh Road heading towards it from the north is generally much busier. Luckily I don't need to drive that way during rush hour but looking at Google maps they do appear to get pretty blocked up during peak times.
@@ryanford5387 realistically, though, I'm not sure the traffic is that much worse than before. The A432 (Willy Wicket) RA used to queue heavily at peak times from all directions except the southern arm. Perhaps the queues have worsened somewhat going north towards Yate from the Keynsham direction but it isn't that much worse.
meanwhile in japan a road is taken out on a Sunday by a land slide and by Thursday the next week it is fully rebuilt and reinforced and open on the Friday..... The UK is a joke
Tax system in Japan pays for infra structure, you can't squeeze an orange over and over again it runs out of pips, collect more tax better services and infrastructure
After 10 years of living there one of my big impressions is: Japan is nowhere near as technologically futuristic as people think (in fact, it's stuck in the 80s in many was) but ... and this is the important bit... *nothing* seems to fall into disrepair. Everything's kept working like new. I don't remember ever having seen a pot hole.
I think it could easily be solved by a land ferry. Buy an old army tank transporter and take cars across the broken bit. Of course a toll fee would need to be applied as well as having a Greggs at either end.
We went up Mam Tor just a day or so after they had closed it. My mum had taken us out for a day in the camper van (that my dad had built) and there wasn't really room to turn round at the "road closed sign" so she ended up driving up looking for a turning spot. She was forced to give up on this plan when there wasn't a road any more. You can tell how many goes they had at the road by the thickness of the tarmac in the broken off bits, it's metres thick.
I live in Calne and the closure is annoying, even though I don’t need to drive that way very often - all the minor roads in the area that could be used as diversions are ‘closed’ to through traffic so I apparently can’t use roads that I have used for years and are nowhere near Lyneham! The B4069 used to be the main road between Swindon and Chippenham (I think it was the A420) but it was downgraded to a B road because of the issues with the stability of the land, which have been ongoing for years. Simultaneously the B3102 between Lyneham and the A4 at Calne was upgraded to A3102 to take all the Chippenham bound traffic away from the Lyneham Banks. This was 20 years before the north-western bypass road round Calne was built and the traffic jams through the town were horrendous for all that time!
This bears some similarities to the event at Stenungsund in Sweden in September 2023, where the E6 motorway and a services (including several vehicles of different sizes) were repositioned by a 50-70 meter landslide caused by fill material at a nearby building site.
I used to use this route weekly, a very enjoyable road. The detour is hard work, so mostly for me it is now the M4, with all the idiots fighting along there. Sadly, the rest of the B4069 is deteriorating, and I guess that'll have little maintenance, as the money will be spent on the broken bit. The collapsed section has had signs warning of 'liable to subsidence' all the years I've known it, and has often become very lumpy before being patched up, so not surprising it fell apart. The construction work above it may well have helped it along. Whatever they're building might carry a bit of a risk. Gravity will win.
Memories of my youth. I can remember Mam Tor before the road collapsed. On the plus side, the diversion takes you through Winnats Pass into Castleton,, a quite beautiful stretch of road. Another good vid Jon!
Incidentally Jon the new A14 section south of Huntingdon opened over six months early. It does happen. Kings Dyke crossing was built for less money than the first contractor said it would. That happens too!
We have a road here on the Isle of Wight, beteween Ventnor and Shanklin. There was a fairly big landslip caused by heavy rain, but the road still remains intact. I expect it to remain closed for a considerable amount of time. It is important for us here on the south of the island, if anything happens on the alternative route, Ventnor is almost cut off.
A portion of US87 collapsed in Wyoming sometime in the 90s that was never rebuilt. Interstate 90 already existed and was only a few miles away and there was another bypass route for it, so the state just decided to leave it as is. ETA: corrected the date.
Ha! you think two years is a long time - go to the Isle of Wight and check out the Undercliff road from Ventnor to Niton - The A3055 Undercliff Drive previously linked Ventor and Niton but it has been closed since February 2014. Eight houses were evacuated and two remained cut off until a temporary access route was created in 2016. And now since the A3055 Leeson Road suffered a landslip in 2023 there are now only two roads serving the town of Ventnor. Now that will make a good story to cover...
.....yeh, its not a unique problem in the Peaks. There's a few roads suffering from subsidence. Snakes Pass is still getting repaired and closed to vehicles over 3.5tons. Doesn't help that people race on the roads and are surprised when they pinball off or through the walls 🤷♂
I used to go over there for the drive, it's a nice road but iv stopped going as everytime seemed to get worse and worse for idiots thinking it's a hill climb on a fast n furious film, the usual awful golf/audi with that stupid pop & bang map. Last I went was 5years ago, coming back at night they'd closed the road by the time I got over due to snow. I was fine in my subaru forester but 4 idiots went screaming past me on a bend then found 2 spun out further up in the hillside with their mates flagging me down to pull them out, obviously with the weather closing in I didnt fancy getting trapped so left them there. Only really go to wales for a nice scenic drive now the roads are far better maintained and iv found a few that are alot better than snakes pass plus it seems the local chavvys actually know how to drive and dont act like utter morons!
@@maybenot6075 I think it was correct of you to continue your journey upon seing a fellow motorist in dire straits.. .. It's the thing to do in the greatest traditions of Top Gear..👍
@@maybenot6075 Black Mountain is great for that. I have plans to do a lot of these roads in my car, but for pictures. If you're doing 100mph you miss all the scenery, especially on a nice day. I'll bring hiking boots and some rope etc and go to the crashed bomber as well, get some exercise and take a picnic!
You'll probably be interested in the A226 near Swanscombe as well, which has suffered a similar fate. Currently no plans in place for what to do about it either, despite it collapsing a year ago.
love a good bit of north wilts coverage as that-er where i hail from. B4069 also has problems near lower seagry with a puddle that doesn't seem to drain leaving the road impassable for lots of cars. Seems like the 4069 might just be cursed.
I drove over there during wet weather last December and the road was like a river due to all the gullies being blocked further up the hill, the water eventually found a low spot in the verge where it ran onto adjacent land, this is right where it has now subsided. NYCC are saying the road will be closed until the end of June at the earliest. I wonder if they'll empty the blocked gullies??
@@ddemaine "They're busy building the new road" Jolly good. I have one of the slow moving queues of diverted traffic sitting outside where I am in Otley for great chunks of the day. We'll celebrate the new bit of road opening.
@@bakedbean37 Alas you'll enduring those queues for some while yet. The upper half that new section of road does resemble something like a road (it is being built on an bridleway). The lower section down by Blubberhouses is currently an array of trenches and piles hardcore.
Wyndford Rd near where I live in Cumbernauld has been shut for over 15 years - It was previously a fairly short but busy road connecting the towns south of the Forth & Clyde canal to the towns north of the canal but due to old underground mineworks causing the road to subside, the road was closed. Despite the fact that the affected section of road is only about 10-15 meters in length, to my knowledge there was disagreements between North Lanarkshire council and Falkirk council regarding who would pay for it as the road lay right on the council boundary. The road is however still passable on foot or by bike.
Has any arrests happened yet? In Sweden, E6 happened to shift just like this road because some nut stacked a lot of earth and gravel just above the motorway on a hillside that was known to be prone to slide. The permit didn't allow any storage of anything on that place because it would be bad. Two people are locked up momentarily while investigating. That sounds reasonable. But those knobs digging next to your road, are they not responsible?
Very much reminds me of the Undercliff Drive between Ventnor and Niton on the Isle of Wight, that's been completely closed to traffic for a few years now since a massive landslide took it out. I don't think the council will ever rebuild it. A shame, because it was one of the most picturesque drives on the whole island.
most of these pictures don't look like the place in question, i used to drive it every night at work and could feel the road profile changing as it started to subside . however since 2022 it has been shut. westbound divert is narrow, oneway, and def not suitable for anything much bigger tham 7.5 ton, eastbound a little longer but prob not good for hgv. best go m4 or divert through lyneham and calne. a bridge is a bloody stupid idea , the road ran the edge of a hillside not across a valley
Mam Tor road near Castleton. I remember riding up it on my motorbike the weekend before it collapsed. There were a couple of minor roadworks with traffic lights...then the whole thing collapsed midweek. And that was it, they gave up in the end...
Another similar one - A59 at Kex Gill between Harrogate and Skipton. That stretch of road isn’t that old, but has been closed due to landslides and subsidence many times. They are now building a new route, but more rain earlier this year closed the road again. Not sure when/if the kex fill part will ever open again
Leashaw between Crich and Cromford in Derbyshire was closed for 3 years, opened again for a couple of months, and now its closed for another 2 years apparently. Landslip
Wilts council don’t maintain their roads n drainage at the best of times. 12 draining grates full to the top with silt in Corsham and plenty of road markings missing 😮a couple of miles from lynham. So not a shock they haven’t fixed this. Wish I’d know you were local John I’d have got you lunch. !!!
The fields to the North of the road have been showing signs of shifting for years. A bit of preventive work, before the collapse, would have been cheaper, quicker and less aggravating to those that use the road. Of course preventive work is a dark art and likely to get you burned at the stake.
Ventnor to shanklin ,Ventnor to Niton Isle of Wight due to dramatic landslides closed perhaps forever ,we in Ventnor are slowly being cut off currently with only one route in which is danger of serious movement
Have a look at the A59 at Blubberhouses, near Harrogate. After several closures for repair it was decided to build a new section on a revised alignment. However while that was being built the original road, which was Only resurfaced last year has now had to be closed due to wet weather earlier in the year. The diversion of this busy road is massive and there’s currently no date for the original road reopening. The new route isn’t due to open until late 2025
They completely recovered a road in parents town. The locals ran a book to see when it was dug up! I was two days off. Thanks Jon, interesting as ever. Safe travels.
I knew A level geography would come in handy one day. I believe the road is a victim of a process known as ‘rotational slip’, which occurs on clay-like soils when they become saturated. The downward force of friction is countered by the partial liquefaction of the clay strata (especially if the wet period is immediately after a dry one) which essentially turns the rock into a slippery slope downhill. A classic example is Hadleigh Castle near us in Essex, one wall of which is halfway down the hill. Interesting to see the plans to essentially underpin the road. A similar exercise took place on my local railway line (c2c) on Dunto bank, albeit this is more about counteracting clay shrinkage than saturation but the principle of stabilising the embankment is the same 👍🍻🍀
Mam Tor is a very unstable hill ( mostly Shale) so replacing the road over it was impractical. There is access to the summit from Edale but it is just that access, no use as a through route.
When I was in Cuba 15 years ago the main road had been washed away in a storm. They chucked some hardcore down by the side and made a temporary road, life continued. In Japan they repair things to a brilliant standard within a few days . ...In the UK we just shut stuff.
I don’t know if it’s the view or me but it looks like the land slide can only go so far because the hill stops, so removing that feature and putting a strong enough retaining wall in with a good drainage system might work. I understand why they have done this and I actually agree with it. If the land that slides is no longer there then it cannot slide anymore since the hill stops as it is only a gentle slope that terminates at the point the land slide stopped at.
We had a road like that locally between Brighouse and Elland - closed for nearly two years and then when it finally opened again they decided do further road works on the bits that hadn't been affected by the landslip....
I lived at the top of that hill, last house as the road goes down with a sharp left hander. Even did my gcse geography project on land movement in the area in 1992. The footpath at the top steadily got closer to the edge and the road always had cracks in it.
Used to enjoy driving the banks route. You could check out the A29 at Pulborough for another smaller slip where the local council did fack all to reopen the road for months while they squabbled with the landowners, and also just to the east of Pulborough at West Chiltington at the bottom of the Harborough Hill is a collapsed culvert which the same lot have done pretty much fack all about except digging a trench across the road to let the water pass. Mysteriously it collapsed not long after they resurfaced the road there. Village has lost its bus service temporarily and diversion is either using stream lane (clue is in the name) or via Adversane or Storrington.
In Sweden a part of the E6 motorway north of Gothenburg collapsed taking cars, trucks and a bus with it. That road section will be closed for less than a year if everything goes as planned with the repairs
We lived in Calne until 2010 lyneham banks have always been shifting down the slope the road was rebuilt in the 2000's but within a year was already showing signs of slipping so surprised it lasted to 2022
There is (was?) a cliff side road on the Isle of Wight that experienced a major collapse a few years back. I don't know if it was repaired or re-routed but it could be worth a look. It would, of course, involve crossing a very expensive (per mile) bit of water. And of course, visiting the very exciting Isle of Wight.
I visited the IoW for the first time last year. It was like the land that time forgot. It looked like it was stuck in 1950. BTW - the local water company pumps untreated sewage shite onto your beaches at the high tides, daily and all the time. No excess rain involved, just the theft of your payments to clean the sewage and they simply fly tip it. Shocking!
@@solariss452 The Isle of Wight is a strangely, lovely place that can feel like it is lost in time. The sewage problem is national. Do you remember the Shieldhall, when she used to carry sewerage from Marchwood to south of the island? She may be still afloat as a tourist attraction.
I agree, the scenery is lovely. I was unaware of the Shieldhall. The water scammers pumped so much raw sewage into the River Cam around Christmas (it wasn't raining) that the black sewage slick was visible on google earth. Maybe they thought no-one would notice. @@AnyoneForToast
I really wish that I had chosen 'Feasibility Study' as a career, now. Money for basically doing sweet F.A. for many years, and then chiming in with an obvious suggestion when the time is right. Money for old rope.
A bit of sidetracking: In Sweden we have an upgraded version of that landslide at 58°03'36.5"N 11°52'58.5"E outside Stenungsund where a human-induced landslide has cut the motorway E6. The damage is not visible in Google Maps though, but there are photos from news sites around. It happened in September 2023, so it's pretty recent and quite disrupting for the traffic. If you for some reason happen to think about visiting the Saab museum in the future, don't miss out the piece of road that starts at 58°11'14.28"N 11°56'38.17"E.
I was going to mention that, especially with Jon questioning whether works in the area actually caused the problem. Though I am guessing the geology in Wiltshire did not require explosives!
if memory serves me right, it wasn't too long ago before the road collapsed, the road itself had recently been resurfaced. when the road was serviceable it was actually a really fun twisty road, i'm sad to learn of its fate as I've not been down that end for a good while.
I visited the IoW for the first time last year. It was like the land that time forgot. It looked like it was stuck in 1950. BTW - the local water company pumps untreated sewage shite onto your beaches at the high tides, daily and all the time. No excess rain involved, just the theft of your payments to clean the sewage and they simply fly tip it. Shocking!
Why don't they put the Army to some use & call it a training exercises, there is plenty of equipment & troops in Wiltshire, and they would be defending the country, from nature in this instance.
Plus if your country military is anything like the US military they are probably sitting around doing absolutely nothing useful or playing hazing games because NCOs and Staffncos got bored
I live not far from Lyneham Banks and one of my justifications for getting a drone was to see what that road is like. Now I am going to have to fabricate a new ‘justification’ but you have saved me several hundred pounds and a lot of earache! 😂
Piling and a rafted road usually suffices, alas you are dealing with local government engineers. So it will probably be really expensive and not solve the problem. I have heard it said many times in several countries, no respectable engineer will take a job in local government. They are either incompetent or have taken employment for the leisurely workload and pension benefits.
i knew it... i knew i passed your famous Saab just as you were leaving Royal Wootton Bassett to join the motorway, as an Ex Saab nut myself, i look out for such beasts on the road.....
Saab 😭😭😭😭
gEt iT?!?
many a saab in my time.
Loved 'borrowing' my Mums Saab turbo and driving extremely fast in it
But does he have a Saaby face, on that side of things?
I hate that junction since they ‘improved’ it. When you come off eastbound and want to go to Wootton Bassett there is a weird gap to aim for between the left to Wroughton and continue clockwise to westbound exit.
When the road between Kununurra and Broome in Western Australia was closed by flooding, the detour on paved roads was 6203km - a fairly optimistic 66 hours
Australia 🦘 😂
"Take this short route, you can make it in one day.
Or you take the scenic detour over flat land. It will bring you there in a bit over a week."
"I have time, I will take the detour."
Jon needs to get down there and make a video on it!
@@justafriend5361 This 100 metre stretch of road is closed and here is the detour live as it happens....
He needs to find and video that road/detour that takes an ever smaller of closed section and an ever longer detour route.
Auto Shenanigans Worldwide Tour... Coming soon (or not)
@@samholdsworth420yes it’s on a map if you know how to use it..👋
The muddy tracks across the collapsed area suggest that a few rugged vehicles have forged a temporary way through. 🚜
probably for the blast and construction site that killed the road.
plenty of 4x4's around this area.
And that is probably the obvious "quick solution". Take a road roller, flatten and compress that track. Add gravel. Cover in tarmac. Job done.
Now ok, it might not last so long, but better than nothing. And if you want it to last longer dig a ditch on one side to hold the water and reinforce the opposite side to deter further slippage.
It takes a lot to stop a busy farmer on his tractor..
"Starting in Lyneham and ending in Chippenham, however it also starts in Chippenham and ends in Lyneham" 🤣🤣😂 It's this sort of commentary that makes me love this channel.
Google Street view, May 2009 shows a sign, 'Road liable to subsidence'.
They weren't kidding.
Look up Galley Hill Road, in Swanscombe, Kent. The chalk spine the road is on collapsed a year ago. the local residents are holding a birthday party for it on friday
Literally came to say this exact thing. Worth a look. I think the companies the road collapsed onto are still waiting for a resolve.
Well i never! I've driven/ridden that road loads and somehow never clocked on that it's perched on a spine! Quite impressive from an aerial view, but not really that surprising that it's falling over
@@_TwoBobBit I never realised either. I drove down there a couple of hours before it collapsed. There was water bubbling out of the road
@@chrisglover1978 Yikes, near death experience! I bet the entire year it's been closed has been dedicated to Thames Water trying to wriggle out of paying for the rebuild
@@_TwoBobBit yes!
Does anyone else find themselves liking Jon's videos and then watching them?
It all becomes worth it when I hear lines such as "running for about nine and half miles starting in Lyneham and ending in Chippenham. However it also starts in Chippenham and ends in Lyneham.". 🤣🤣🤣
Every time, I mean, it's almost guaranteed that you're going to like the video so hit that like button ASAP!
Don’t hold your breath on the final cost and time to completion. This is a public project so double the cost and double the estimated time and you might be near to reality. Great video.
I wonder if they will pre-install the potholes during the build to blend it in with the rest of the roads in the area or if the plan is to allow natural organic ones to self grow
yet the chinese would have the road rebuilt within a week with concrete subase material and concrete pilings on the high side to reduce slippage
@@clintonepps3666
Tofu Dreg concrete
The B5605 in Newbridge near Wrexham, would like to point out that it was closed after a landslip in January 2021, and rebuilding work has yet to start.
Or Queen's Road in Brymbo...
Newbridge is a right pain at the moment, its a pain for the A483 diversion route and divert through Llangollen must put 12 miles on the journey
@@petereverett1455 Queens Road is now a footpath it just up the road from me in Pentre Broughton
That was the main southerly route into/out of Wrexham until the very late 1980s, when they built the new Newbridge bridge, so although it’s a pain in the arse now, it would’ve been a catastrophe if it had happened then. I remember having to go through the middle of Chirk and Newbridge, up the side of Cefn, Rhosymedre and Plas Madoc, then through Ruabon and Johnstown to get on to the Wrexham bypass at Rhostyllen. The only clues left are the dual carriageway in Ruabon and a couple of ghost petrol stations.
@shaun30-3-mg9zs definitely is! And then people get stuck when they try and go via Pontycysyllte.
As someone who lives in Chippenham and works in Lyneham, I can testify it is indeed a bit annoying! If I’m really feeling fruity I’ll drive home down Clack Hill, but the residents of Bradenstoke are a bit sick of all the traffic so I keep that for a special treat once or twice a month so as not to annoy them too much……
Nice to see another local segment.
This used to be a cracking little stretch of road
Clearly not what it was once cracked up to be.
I like how through your videos it's incredibly clear that the more well informed you become about how all of this works the more cynical you become.
@tiepup they still haven't been approved but my buddy at the consulting firm assures me that my re-election fund will the incredibly happy with the findings. Sounds like we might have to order seven.
Civil engineer (Railway) from the continent here. After a certain amount of years in the business you either get cynical, become a total lunatic, or just run out of forks to give. Or you change to the dark side and believe in „everything will be good, on time, and in budget“.
Trust me. If we could transfer our sarcasm into budget Japanese Railways would look like a model train club compared to us.
@tiepupWell before the second minor disagreement.
If you watch JonLevi and 'My Lunch Break' to see what was achieved hundreds of years ago... our modern lack of ability is even more puzzling!
@@G-ra-ha-m Stone Henge, Pyramids, Roman Colosseum, Dover Castle. Now we have the Millennium Dome.
If you like closed roads due to land movement, you'll absolutely love the Isle of Wight.
Yes. I hope the Saab appears there soon.
There’s a nail and a head in there mate, wiltshire council are as much use as t*ts on a fish. The poor pub down the bottom of the hill is struggling like crazy because of the loss of passing custom and whenever you want to go anywhere it usually means taking the much longer diversion via Calne.
I can assure you work won’t start this year, I can also assure you it’ll slip again, whilst the construction work didn’t help above (I know the guy who it nearly bankrupt) he did have full permission for all land movements etc. the issue lies in highways and the council in the fact they removed all the trees in the bank that was holding the bank up. I remember them doing it and I said to my old man that the bank would be gone in a few years, hey presto the roots rot and the only thing holding the bank has gone. Cue landslide….
Sounds about right. Shock Horror ............. tree roots hold soil together.
Councils hacking down trees seems to be even more popular than DEI this year...
I had the same conversation with my old man, shame as it was quite a fun road to drive.
The Council removed the trees?! I assumed it was the developer. Is it the same guy who owns the Lilly Brook site?
I wonder if the council did any ground investigation or whether their agri contractor just turned up and started ripping up trees.
Permission should never have been given to undertake that level of building work directly at the top of an already moving - albeit slowly - hillside. Every day I used to drive to work and see the piles of earth being moved beside the garage and wonder if I’d make it safely to the bottom of the hill. It was obvious that something was going to go wrong at some point. The road will now likely never be rebuilt resulting in endless misery for people living in all the tiny lanes around Lyneham, Dauntsey and Wootton Bassett that now see hulking great big lorries, and hundreds of cars and vans every day. Just last week, I viewed a property in one of them. Went on a Saturday - busier than expected but fairly acceptable; went back in the week during rush hour and it was an immediate no. People were flying up and down the road trying to get to Lyneham. It’s affected so many aspects of life in the area. Nobody living locally, who I’ve spoken to, believes it will ever be reopened.
The problem with feasibility studies is they cost so much the actual remediation works become hamstrung.
Loving you series on disappearing roads, how long before the Snake Pass slides down the mountain side, already banned large trucks and now several traffic lights as single traffic in places.
Haha I was just about to say about that slip near LadyBower.
Is that in Derbyshire?
I've not been on that road for a while now, but the last time I went on it I noticed a couple of speed restrictions and one bit near the Ladybower which had dropped so far I felt my car's suspension bottom out as I hit it. Given the Woodhead is now so crap as a route across the Pennines, with so much traffic ruining it, I'm thinking the abandoning of the M67 is looking more and more short-sighted
WOW im from ashton under lyne originaly so 30 min drive from the snake pass ( my family still live there but im in bristol now for 18 yrs) ...ANYHOW i digress lol i neevr knew they had put limitations on it now i remeber as a kid in the 70s and 80s going out with my granadad who was a lorry driver (obv unofficaly as hed of got sacked taking me with him if the firm found out lol) he delivered timber on a flatbed truck with just a normal cab ( no sleeping compartment) so did a lot of deliveries across the snake and wood head passes to places such as bakewell, sheffield ect and also did some pick ups from places such as hull docks! ..I suppose now lorrys would have to use wood head OR go the long way round threough stockport onto the A6 or the m62 up through rochdale and huddersfield!
Derbyshire has numerous roads closed due to "land slips" - mostly minor roads, but it takes them years to sort the jobs out.
Lea bottom - closed 3 years, reopened 1 year ago, and almost immediately reclosed due to another collapse in Holloway 2 miles away. Still no signs of any repair in Holloway and another section of Lea Bottom has now dropped about 3 inches but so far it remains open as far as Holloway.
Chesterfield Road, Beeley - closed for more than 2 years. Rumour has it that this one is never to re-open.
Oker road - closed since the start of the pandemic. No signs yet that it is going to get repaired.
There are more, but these 3 are local and so I know the details.
Glaciers move faster than DDC Highways.
Dauntsey Bank is nearby where the Western Railway passes by (on the same road). That also shifts. I remember my grandad mentioning it often in the 70's (he was retired from the railway on medical grounds). Since then, I've worked with railways for 43 years.
The A3055 west of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight had a landslip and closed the road back in 2012.
The A3055 east of Ventnor was closed recently because of a landslip, it's 50/50 if the road will reopen.
The A3055 between Shanklin and Chale has a history of landslips and the road being rebuilt or a new route made.
I lived in Lyneham at the RAF base in the early 00's so this is a bit of blast from my past.
Back then, it was the busiest cargo airport in the country. Lived right next to it for twelve years.
Wow, when I was posted at RAF Lyneham back in the 00's I used to love driving that road. One time when I was on nightshit guard duty I was given the chance to drive the guard Commander's Lotus Elise along it, that was so much fun!!!
I used to drive it several times a week in a classic Mini when I lived in Wootton Bassett and my girlfriend lived in Chippenham. I could get 70mph between the two sharp corners (going downhill) and not end up in the field. Great road when it existed.
I used to work for GPO Telephones AKA BT, deeply involved with Gulf War 1.phone wise, Do you remember a former CO Grp. Cpt Alastair Steadman?
Army or RAF?
@@lilcharlie3130 The only Army at Lyneham were RCT/RLC (47 AD Sqn & 395 AD Tp) who packed the loads for air-dropping - and they were well over the other side of the base, east of the A3102 (Calne Road). Or do you mean a Group Captain???
@@wessexdruid7598 I meant to the op, as he said he was posted to lyneham and wondered if he knew my dad (as you said there were only about 150 boys at lyneham so he might’ve known him)
Cool that you know about 47 though, not many even know they were there.
If you're looking at closed roads awaiting repair, another example in the South West would be the A432 between Yate and Downend. Bridge over the M4 built in the 60s to last 120 years. After half of that the bridge is closed already beyond repair and due to be replaced and completed by 2026. Diversion causing traffic chaos, country lanes nearby closed and local road layouts changed in the meantime.
The traffic lights near Junction 18 of the M4 make it easier to turn right on to the A46 from the B4465, though. So there's that.
@@rickmancr I didn't realise the temporary measures went that far away. Even so, the Lyde Green roundabout on A4174 and the stretch of Westerleigh Road heading towards it from the north is generally much busier. Luckily I don't need to drive that way during rush hour but looking at Google maps they do appear to get pretty blocked up during peak times.
@@ryanford5387 realistically, though, I'm not sure the traffic is that much worse than before. The A432 (Willy Wicket) RA used to queue heavily at peak times from all directions except the southern arm. Perhaps the queues have worsened somewhat going north towards Yate from the Keynsham direction but it isn't that much worse.
Things like the Old Mam Tor road are why we do feasibility studies now. No point pouring tens of millions into a literal hole in the ground.
meanwhile in japan a road is taken out on a Sunday by a land slide and by Thursday the next week it is fully rebuilt and reinforced and open on the Friday..... The UK is a joke
But then again we can blow our nose in public without causing offence
@@Pooky-CatAnd there was that whole Pearl Harbor thing too.
And, much of the time, they do the work at night with minimal disruption. Seen it with my own eyes over there.
Tax system in Japan pays for infra structure, you can't squeeze an orange over and over again it runs out of pips, collect more tax better services and infrastructure
After 10 years of living there one of my big impressions is: Japan is nowhere near as technologically futuristic as people think (in fact, it's stuck in the 80s in many was) but ... and this is the important bit... *nothing* seems to fall into disrepair. Everything's kept working like new. I don't remember ever having seen a pot hole.
I think it could easily be solved by a land ferry. Buy an old army tank transporter and take cars across the broken bit.
Of course a toll fee would need to be applied as well as having a Greggs at either end.
That's funny. You made me chuckle, but so true!
Sadly the 'Land Ferry' would have to be electric 🔋 🔋 🔋 ⚡🔥, and the Greggs would only be allowed to sell 'Vegan' sausage rolls....😮 🤮
We went up Mam Tor just a day or so after they had closed it. My mum had taken us out for a day in the camper van (that my dad had built) and there wasn't really room to turn round at the "road closed sign" so she ended up driving up looking for a turning spot. She was forced to give up on this plan when there wasn't a road any more.
You can tell how many goes they had at the road by the thickness of the tarmac in the broken off bits, it's metres thick.
I live in Calne and the closure is annoying, even though I don’t need to drive that way very often - all the minor roads in the area that could be used as diversions are ‘closed’ to through traffic so I apparently can’t use roads that I have used for years and are nowhere near Lyneham! The B4069 used to be the main road between Swindon and Chippenham (I think it was the A420) but it was downgraded to a B road because of the issues with the stability of the land, which have been ongoing for years. Simultaneously the B3102 between Lyneham and the A4 at Calne was upgraded to A3102 to take all the Chippenham bound traffic away from the Lyneham Banks. This was 20 years before the north-western bypass road round Calne was built and the traffic jams through the town were horrendous for all that time!
I used to live in Calne, it was pretty funny hearing and seeing all the locals going nuts over it.
I used to commute that stretch of road on a daily basis, was really nice in summer on a bike in the twisty bits going uphill.
This bears some similarities to the event at Stenungsund in Sweden in September 2023, where the E6 motorway and a services (including several vehicles of different sizes) were repositioned by a 50-70 meter landslide caused by fill material at a nearby building site.
I used to use this route weekly, a very enjoyable road. The detour is hard work, so mostly for me it is now the M4, with all the idiots fighting along there. Sadly, the rest of the B4069 is deteriorating, and I guess that'll have little maintenance, as the money will be spent on the broken bit. The collapsed section has had signs warning of 'liable to subsidence' all the years I've known it, and has often become very lumpy before being patched up, so not surprising it fell apart. The construction work above it may well have helped it along. Whatever they're building might carry a bit of a risk. Gravity will win.
Memories of my youth. I can remember Mam Tor before the road collapsed. On the plus side, the diversion takes you through Winnats Pass into Castleton,, a quite beautiful stretch of road. Another good vid Jon!
A59 North Yorkshire might be worth some research!!
Incidentally Jon the new A14 section south of Huntingdon opened over six months early. It does happen. Kings Dyke crossing was built for less money than the first contractor said it would. That happens too!
We have a road here on the Isle of Wight, beteween Ventnor and Shanklin. There was a fairly big landslip caused by heavy rain, but the road still remains intact. I expect it to remain closed for a considerable amount of time. It is important for us here on the south of the island, if anything happens on the alternative route, Ventnor is almost cut off.
RAF LYNEHAM used to have lots of heavy kit arriving on those roads for many years. Bound to take its toll.
I think they used the road from the east, it is noticeably wider than lyneham banks, presumably because of the RAF base.
You need to have a look at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful. £14m spent so far clearing landslides and estimated £130m to fix it properly.
A portion of US87 collapsed in Wyoming sometime in the 90s that was never rebuilt. Interstate 90 already existed and was only a few miles away and there was another bypass route for it, so the state just decided to leave it as is.
ETA: corrected the date.
Ha! you think two years is a long time - go to the Isle of Wight and check out the Undercliff road from Ventnor to Niton - The A3055 Undercliff Drive previously linked Ventor and Niton but it has been closed since February 2014. Eight houses were evacuated and two remained cut off until a temporary access route was created in 2016. And now since the A3055 Leeson Road suffered a landslip in 2023 there are now only two roads serving the town of Ventnor. Now that will make a good story to cover...
.....yeh, its not a unique problem in the Peaks. There's a few roads suffering from subsidence. Snakes Pass is still getting repaired and closed to vehicles over 3.5tons. Doesn't help that people race on the roads and are surprised when they pinball off or through the walls 🤷♂
I used to go over there for the drive, it's a nice road but iv stopped going as everytime seemed to get worse and worse for idiots thinking it's a hill climb on a fast n furious film, the usual awful golf/audi with that stupid pop & bang map. Last I went was 5years ago, coming back at night they'd closed the road by the time I got over due to snow. I was fine in my subaru forester but 4 idiots went screaming past me on a bend then found 2 spun out further up in the hillside with their mates flagging me down to pull them out, obviously with the weather closing in I didnt fancy getting trapped so left them there. Only really go to wales for a nice scenic drive now the roads are far better maintained and iv found a few that are alot better than snakes pass plus it seems the local chavvys actually know how to drive and dont act like utter morons!
@@maybenot6075
I think it was correct of you to continue your journey upon seing a fellow motorist in dire straits..
..
It's the thing to do in the greatest traditions of
Top Gear..👍
@@maybenot6075 Black Mountain is great for that. I have plans to do a lot of these roads in my car, but for pictures.
If you're doing 100mph you miss all the scenery, especially on a nice day. I'll bring hiking boots and some rope etc and go to the crashed bomber as well, get some exercise and take a picnic!
You'll probably be interested in the A226 near Swanscombe as well, which has suffered a similar fate. Currently no plans in place for what to do about it either, despite it collapsing a year ago.
love a good bit of north wilts coverage as that-er where i hail from. B4069 also has problems near lower seagry with a puddle that doesn't seem to drain leaving the road impassable for lots of cars. Seems like the 4069 might just be cursed.
In North Yorkshire a major A road A59 has been closed since early February due to landslip and I don’t think work has started on it yet.
I drove near there last week: They're busy building the new road to replace that section (west of Blubberhouses)
@@ddemaine That’s good news
I drove over there during wet weather last December and the road was like a river due to all the gullies being blocked further up the hill, the water eventually found a low spot in the verge where it ran onto adjacent land, this is right where it has now subsided. NYCC are saying the road will be closed until the end of June at the earliest. I wonder if they'll empty the blocked gullies??
@@ddemaine "They're busy building the new road"
Jolly good. I have one of the slow moving queues of diverted traffic sitting outside where I am in Otley for great chunks of the day.
We'll celebrate the new bit of road opening.
@@bakedbean37 Alas you'll enduring those queues for some while yet. The upper half that new section of road does resemble something like a road (it is being built on an bridleway). The lower section down by Blubberhouses is currently an array of trenches and piles hardcore.
Wyndford Rd near where I live in Cumbernauld has been shut for over 15 years - It was previously a fairly short but busy road connecting the towns south of the Forth & Clyde canal to the towns north of the canal but due to old underground mineworks causing the road to subside, the road was closed.
Despite the fact that the affected section of road is only about 10-15 meters in length, to my knowledge there was disagreements between North Lanarkshire council and Falkirk council regarding who would pay for it as the road lay right on the council boundary.
The road is however still passable on foot or by bike.
If you are in the area in the future you could do a quick update short on it. 1 minute quick drone flyover + voiceover.
Has any arrests happened yet? In Sweden, E6 happened to shift just like this road because some nut stacked a lot of earth and gravel just above the motorway on a hillside that was known to be prone to slide. The permit didn't allow any storage of anything on that place because it would be bad. Two people are locked up momentarily while investigating. That sounds reasonable. But those knobs digging next to your road, are they not responsible?
Not arrested that we’re aware of and yes, they are partly responsible. Similar situation to what you described.
In the Cambridgeshire Fens they used to build the roadway floated on massive bundles of willow withies. Still working well to this day.
Strange how the building work is allowed to continue, given that it is on ‘unstable ground’?
Is isn’t it? Also strange that lorry loads of hardcore were put down just before the collapse, but I’m sure it’s just the rain.
I visited last week no sign of development the building site looks abandoned 11111 ====
Won't surprise me if this road goes the same way as the Mam Tor road did. It looks pretty much the same.
Soon to be followed by all the roads to Lea
You're an absolute gem in this world, love it xD
They should consider beefing up the Clack Hill road
Very much reminds me of the Undercliff Drive between Ventnor and Niton on the Isle of Wight, that's been completely closed to traffic for a few years now since a massive landslide took it out. I don't think the council will ever rebuild it. A shame, because it was one of the most picturesque drives on the whole island.
most of these pictures don't look like the place in question, i used to drive it every night at work and could feel the road profile changing as it started to subside . however since 2022 it has been shut. westbound divert is narrow, oneway, and def not suitable for anything much bigger tham 7.5 ton, eastbound a little longer but prob not good for hgv. best go m4 or divert through lyneham and calne. a bridge is a bloody stupid idea , the road ran the edge of a hillside not across a valley
Mam Tor road near Castleton. I remember riding up it on my motorbike the weekend before it collapsed. There were a couple of minor roadworks with traffic lights...then the whole thing collapsed midweek. And that was it, they gave up in the end...
Another similar one - A59 at Kex Gill between Harrogate and Skipton. That stretch of road isn’t that old, but has been closed due to landslides and subsidence many times. They are now building a new route, but more rain earlier this year closed the road again. Not sure when/if the kex fill part will ever open again
Yea... welcome to 'Fix nothing' Wiltshire. Never lived anywhere like this where they let the place just fall apart. Can't wait to move away
Fix nothing and charge you a fortune to live here too.
Leashaw between Crich and Cromford in Derbyshire was closed for 3 years, opened again for a couple of months, and now its closed for another 2 years apparently. Landslip
There is a similar problem between Harrogate and Skipton on the A59 around an area called Kex Gill. Road closed for the foreseeable future
Wilts council don’t maintain their roads n drainage at the best of times. 12 draining grates full to the top with silt in Corsham and plenty of road markings missing 😮a couple of miles from lynham. So not a shock they haven’t fixed this. Wish I’d know you were local John I’d have got you lunch. !!!
The fields to the North of the road have been showing signs of shifting for years. A bit of preventive work, before the collapse, would have been cheaper, quicker and less aggravating to those that use the road. Of course preventive work is a dark art and likely to get you burned at the stake.
Ventnor to shanklin ,Ventnor to Niton Isle of Wight due to dramatic landslides closed perhaps forever ,we in Ventnor are slowly being cut off currently with only one route in which is danger of serious movement
Have a look at the A59 at Blubberhouses, near Harrogate. After several closures for repair it was decided to build a new section on a revised alignment. However while that was being built the original road, which was Only resurfaced last year has now had to be closed due to wet weather earlier in the year. The diversion of this busy road is massive and there’s currently no date for the original road reopening. The new route isn’t due to open until late 2025
They completely recovered a road in parents town. The locals ran a book to see when it was dug up! I was two days off. Thanks Jon, interesting as ever. Safe travels.
Come to the isle of wight mate, we've got plenty of closed and soon to be closed roads here, its a fucking nightmare!
I knew A level geography would come in handy one day. I believe the road is a victim of a process known as ‘rotational slip’, which occurs on clay-like soils when they become saturated. The downward force of friction is countered by the partial liquefaction of the clay strata (especially if the wet period is immediately after a dry one) which essentially turns the rock into a slippery slope downhill. A classic example is Hadleigh Castle near us in Essex, one wall of which is halfway down the hill.
Interesting to see the plans to essentially underpin the road. A similar exercise took place on my local railway line (c2c) on Dunto bank, albeit this is more about counteracting clay shrinkage than saturation but the principle of stabilising the embankment is the same 👍🍻🍀
Mam Tor is a very unstable hill ( mostly Shale) so replacing the road over it was impractical. There is access to the summit from Edale but it is just that access, no use as a through route.
Take that price and either multiply it by 4 and double the expected time window to completion... its how these things go.
Thanks
When I was in Cuba 15 years ago the main road had been washed away in a storm. They chucked some hardcore down by the side and made a temporary road, life continued. In Japan they repair things to a brilliant standard within a few days . ...In the UK we just shut stuff.
Same as the Bervie Braes in Stonehaven (coastal Tourist Rte on google maps)
That must be closed to traffic at least 20 years. I remember it was one way (downwards) in 1989, but can't be arsed googling when the landslip was....
@@dough740 It's 2 way until half way down then one way downhill only to teh bottom.
very reminiscent of the rail line between telford and wellington in shropshire
Wyndford road near cumbernauld has been shut to through traffic for over 10 years now due to it subsiding into an old mine
Same craziness on Jenolan Caved Road in NSW, with a stop-go process, except the workers are incompetent, and send cars towards each other!
I don’t know if it’s the view or me but it looks like the land slide can only go so far because the hill stops, so removing that feature and putting a strong enough retaining wall in with a good drainage system might work. I understand why they have done this and I actually agree with it. If the land that slides is no longer there then it cannot slide anymore since the hill stops as it is only a gentle slope that terminates at the point the land slide stopped at.
We had a road like that locally between Brighouse and Elland - closed for nearly two years and then when it finally opened again they decided do further road works on the bits that hadn't been affected by the landslip....
I lived at the top of that hill, last house as the road goes down with a sharp left hander. Even did my gcse geography project on land movement in the area in 1992. The footpath at the top steadily got closer to the edge and the road always had cracks in it.
Was gonna mention about the road at Mam Tor, wondered if you'd been there, but no need to now.
Used to enjoy driving the banks route. You could check out the A29 at Pulborough for another smaller slip where the local council did fack all to reopen the road for months while they squabbled with the landowners, and also just to the east of Pulborough at West Chiltington at the bottom of the Harborough Hill is a collapsed culvert which the same lot have done pretty much fack all about except digging a trench across the road to let the water pass. Mysteriously it collapsed not long after they resurfaced the road there. Village has lost its bus service temporarily and diversion is either using stream lane (clue is in the name) or via Adversane or Storrington.
In Sweden a part of the E6 motorway north of Gothenburg collapsed taking cars, trucks and a bus with it. That road section will be closed for less than a year if everything goes as planned with the repairs
My ex used to live in Lyneham. Lovely Indian restaurant round the corner from her. Shame she was terrible really.
That lovely restaurant, The Spice of Asia, is still there and the food is still delicious!
No mention of RAF Lyneham 😢 as I recall, home of the Hercules in the UK……..
Used to be before they moved them all to Brize.
@@paulsengupta971 can’t believe they cleared out 2011/12 😳
I obviously need to setup a feasibility consultancy and get council contracts.. easy money.
I would point out that the Mam Tor road was built on top of a 4000 year old landslide in the first place...
I love your stuff, AS, satisfies my thing for infrastructure in the UK. Thank you.
We lived in Calne until 2010 lyneham banks have always been shifting down the slope the road was rebuilt in the 2000's but within a year was already showing signs of slipping so surprised it lasted to 2022
wow, i used to work in Lyneham and always had to take that detour but never knew why
Mate you have a great Chanel very informative and content I have watched you for the last few months 100% for you
There is (was?) a cliff side road on the Isle of Wight that experienced a major collapse a few years back. I don't know if it was repaired or re-routed but it could be worth a look.
It would, of course, involve crossing a very expensive (per mile) bit of water.
And of course, visiting the very exciting Isle of Wight.
You'll be thinking of Undercliff Drive. They were unable to repair, so rerouted traffic.
@@alastairfulbrook1285 Thank you, sir. 👍
I visited the IoW for the first time last year. It was like the land that time forgot. It looked like it was stuck in 1950. BTW - the local water company pumps untreated sewage shite onto your beaches at the high tides, daily and all the time. No excess rain involved, just the theft of your payments to clean the sewage and they simply fly tip it. Shocking!
@@solariss452 The Isle of Wight is a strangely, lovely place that can feel like it is lost in time.
The sewage problem is national.
Do you remember the Shieldhall, when she used to carry sewerage from Marchwood to south of the island?
She may be still afloat as a tourist attraction.
I agree, the scenery is lovely.
I was unaware of the Shieldhall.
The water scammers pumped so much raw sewage into the River Cam around Christmas (it wasn't raining) that the black sewage slick was visible on google earth.
Maybe they thought no-one would notice.
@@AnyoneForToast
Undercliff Drive on the Isle of Wight, west of Ventnor, is similar, they've just given up and send you on a massive detour.
I really wish that I had chosen 'Feasibility Study' as a career, now. Money for basically doing sweet F.A. for many years, and then chiming in with an obvious suggestion when the time is right. Money for old rope.
Another informative and excellent video Jon!
A bit of sidetracking:
In Sweden we have an upgraded version of that landslide at 58°03'36.5"N 11°52'58.5"E outside Stenungsund where a human-induced landslide has cut the motorway E6. The damage is not visible in Google Maps though, but there are photos from news sites around. It happened in September 2023, so it's pretty recent and quite disrupting for the traffic.
If you for some reason happen to think about visiting the Saab museum in the future, don't miss out the piece of road that starts at 58°11'14.28"N 11°56'38.17"E.
I was going to mention that, especially with Jon questioning whether works in the area actually caused the problem. Though I am guessing the geology in Wiltshire did not require explosives!
My sister lives at the foot of Lyneham Banks, and the only access is via the back roads of Brinkworth through to Wooton Bassett.
if memory serves me right, it wasn't too long ago before the road collapsed, the road itself had recently been resurfaced. when the road was serviceable it was actually a really fun twisty road, i'm sad to learn of its fate as I've not been down that end for a good while.
Went to some great lash ups with my Swindon landlord and his mates when the were in the RAF at Lyneham.
2:20 Looks like 4x4 drivers have already made their own muddy track just above where the road used to be. 4x4s and tractors can get through easily.
Nice video will be interesting to see the 2025 video on this road
Have you been to the Isle of wight to look at are crumbling road net work Thanks again
I visited the IoW for the first time last year. It was like the land that time forgot. It looked like it was stuck in 1950. BTW - the local water company pumps untreated sewage shite onto your beaches at the high tides, daily and all the time. No excess rain involved, just the theft of your payments to clean the sewage and they simply fly tip it. Shocking!
Why don't they put the Army to some use & call it a training exercises, there is plenty of equipment & troops in Wiltshire, and they would be defending the country, from nature in this instance.
Plus if your country military is anything like the US military they are probably sitting around doing absolutely nothing useful or playing hazing games because NCOs and Staffncos got bored
I live not far from Lyneham Banks and one of my justifications for getting a drone was to see what that road is like. Now I am going to have to fabricate a new ‘justification’ but you have saved me several hundred pounds and a lot of earache! 😂
Piling and a rafted road usually suffices, alas you are dealing with local government engineers. So it will probably be really expensive and not solve the problem. I have heard it said many times in several countries, no respectable engineer will take a job in local government. They are either incompetent or have taken employment for the leisurely workload and pension benefits.