Busy Chapel-en-le-Frith road to close for six months

A section of a busy Chapel-en-le-Frith road is to be closed for six months for major works.
The road will close at the end of AprilThe road will close at the end of April
The road will close at the end of April

Sheffield Road, from the junction with Market Street to the junction with Frith Knoll Road, will be closed from April 29 until the end of October so work to fix a broken culvert can take place.

The culvert runs under Sheffield Road, just outside Derbyshire County Council’s highways depot and is 75m long with around 30m directly under the road. Black Brook runs through the culvert to the junction of Market Street and Buxton Road.

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A routine inspection found serious structural issues with the culvert in a number of places. Large cracks were found in the stone slab sections covering the culvert and structural defects were found in the masonry arches that support Sheffield Road.

If these structural issues are not fixed there is a serious risk that Sheffield Road could collapse and cause damage to the utilities - gas, electric, water, sewage pipes and phone cables - that are in the road. This could also lead to flooding in the area, Derbyshire County Council said.

The utilities will all need to be moved before the culvert is replaced with a pre-cast reinforced concrete culvert.

Councillor Simon Spencer, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Infrastructure, said: “We know that closing Sheffield Road will cause difficulties for people and businesses in Chapel, but we have no choice.

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“If we were not to do the work we run a very real risk that the road could collapse and cause flooding to the surrounding areas.

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“We will be working to get the job done as quickly as possible. This is a major piece of engineering, made more complicated by the fact that every single utility runs under the road near the culvert."

Once the work is done the culvert should last for 120 years, and it will also reduce the flooding risk. The cost is expected to be around £750,000.

Design work and consultation with the Environment Agency and utility companies started last year and HGVs were stopped from using the road. A tree was removed in preparation for the work.

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While Sheffield Road is closed, southbound traffic on the A6 will be diverted up to Barmoor Clough roundabout and will ‘u turn’ back up the A6 to get into Chapel-en-le Frith using the B5470. Traffic wanting the A6 northbound will leave Chapel-en-le-Frith on Hayfield Road which will remain one-way as the current HGV diversion.