LANDSLIDE-HIT LEESON ROAD TO REMAIN CLOSED INTO JANUARY CONFIRMS COUNCIL

The main road connecting Shanklin to Ventnor is to remain closed until at least January, with no guarantees given that the road will re-open even then. It has been confirmed by the Isle of Wight Council that Leeson Road is to remain firmly closed for the time being, with a hard closure being implemented on the Shanklin side of the landslip which devastated the Bonchurch area on Sunday night. The hard closure will be implemented by Island Roads tonight (Friday) and will mean that vehicular access is only possible from Shanklin to the ‘high side’ of the Landslip car park, just above the Smugglers Haven Tea Gardens. Residents accessing properties on Leeson Road will have to do so from the Ventnor side. The road closure at Bonchurch Shute is to be moved higher up to Leeson Road to enable access to Lower Leeson Road premises. The council says that whilst the intention will be to reopen the road when it is safe to do so, the closure needs to remain in place whilst monitoring and further technical work is undertaken to enable an informed decision on when the road can be reopened. The technical work is currently being commissioned but is not expected to start until January, meaning Leeson Road is to remain closed for at least 3 more weeks – but it seems likely that it will be much longer before traffic is free-flowing again. Earlier this week the Isle of Wight Council said that it would be monitoring the area ‘over the coming days’ and if there was no evidence of further movement, the road would re-open. Now it seems that monitoring alone isn’t enough, with ‘technical’ work deemed necessary.