B4069 Lyneham Banks: Wonky road 'killing pub's trade'

The landlord of a Chippenham pub says its future is "uncertain" after a landslip ripped up a road.

The B4069 near Lyneham has been shut since February when Storm Eunice caused major damage.

Wiltshire Council said the road would not reopen until late next year, with work to cost millions of pounds.

Brendan Watkins, the licensee of Peterborough Arms in Dauntsey Lock, claimed the closure had killed the pub's trade.

The B4069 has been dubbed Wiltshire's wonkiest road after the landslip caused it to split, with parts of the surface rising to around six metres.

Wiltshire Council shut it earlier this year and warned people to stay away.

Now the council said it did not expect major construction work to start until 2023, and it would not reopen until later that year.

Mr Watkins said: "[Before the landslip] the pub was generally a lot busier, with locals and passing trade.

"A few of the people who are regular here have said sorry for not coming, because they don't want to come through Bradenstoke village. It's a problem, we have lost regulars.

"And we've definitely lost passing trade because a lot of people will use this road at the weekends, call in and have a pint and a sandwich and go off.

"It's a good meeting place for people from both sides of the road.

"People from Lyneham and Wootton Bassett and people from Chippenham area, they would come and meet here because it's a nice halfway point. But of course they can't do that any more cause they can only get here one way."

Mr Watkins said the road looked like "something from a disaster movie".

He added: "It's completely split and torn up. There's big crevices in the road, and a big landslide down the one side.

"It started off with a little split in the road, about an inch wide. It gradually started to get bigger and bigger and one side of the road started to buckle.

"They put traffic lights on it so you can just pass on one side for a few weeks but it was obviously getting worse and worse as time was going on and then eventually they had no option than to stop people going up there.

"The split was getting bigger and bigger and in the end it was six metres deep."

Mr Watkins said he felt "absolutely helpless".

"You can't plan for the future. You don't want to spend any extra money, you can't invest in the pub because you don't know what the future holds.

"We're in the summer now, it's light nights, it's not too bad but in the winter, when the nights close in and the bad weather gets here things will only get worse. It makes for a very uncertain future unfortunately.

"I just want the road to be reopened again, or a timeline of when we can expect things to at least start and be finished and reopened again."

Councillor Dr Mark McClelland, the council's cabinet member for transport, said: "We are still working to repair and reinstate the B4069 at Lyneham Banks, but this is a major engineering project that will take many months to complete.

"We do not expect major construction work to begin on the road until 2023, with it reopening at some point later that year.

"We have installed monitoring equipment on the road and surrounding area, and while the landslip is not moving as much as it was, it is still moving and there is a significant amount of ground investigation work to do to inform any future designs for the road.

"As there is currently no preferred design, we cannot confirm what the cost of reinstating the road will be, but we anticipate that it will run into millions of pounds.

"We are sorry to hear about any fall in trade for local businesses, and have installed signage to let people know that businesses are open as usual. In some cases, affected businesses may be eligible to apply for business rate relief."

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