Derbyshire cafe owners fear landslip road closure could kill their business

Leon White, 34, and Freya Fleming, 35, have run the Chase Cafe in Leashaw, Holloway, for the past 18 months but, for nearly a year of that time, the road to their business has been closed to vehicles.

In November 2022 heavy rainfall caused a 40-metre landslip on Leashaw, between Crich and Matlock, and in January this year the road slipped again in further downpours.

Mr White told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the continued closure of the route has already caused three businesses – a pub, a shop and a post office – to close and he fears the cafe could become the fourth.

He says communication from Derbyshire County Council over when the route would reopen has been sub-par. This includes a moving series of dates for when the road would be reopened, all of which have come and gone, with the route still closed.

The last date the cafe and locals were given for the route to reopen was October 31 – to reopen November 1, which has now passed, with no further date provided. A listing for the closed route on One.Network currently says the road could be closed until January 31, 2024, but this has not been communicated to residents and businesses.

Mr White says even a long-distant date would be helpful so that long-term business decisions could be made. What has added insult to injury, he says, is the lack of “businesses open as usual” signs deployed by the county council, which it usually displays on road closures. This has meant that would-be customers have been turning away, assuming the cafe is closed.

Mr Leon said he suggested putting up their own signs to indicate that businesses were open as usual but claims the county council said this could see the cafe owners served with £300 fines for obstructing the highway.

The surrounding community has been hit hard by landslips, with the nearby Lea Road having been closed for nearly three years. Following heavy rainfall in January 2020, a 45-metre stretch of Lea Road slipped and was not reopened until December 2022, with breeding salmon also delaying repair works.

Both landslips and extensive delays have led to extensive traffic disruption with vehicles forced onto less viable routes for long periods of time, with significant diversions. When Leashaw first slipped, the county council had provided an estimated six-month completion of repairs. Four months later, in March, the council said the new estimated completion was July 29 – eight months on from the incident.

A further month later, in April, residents and business owners were told by county council officials that the Leashaw landslip would not be another three-year ordeal, Mr White said. The first apparent appearance from workers on site was July 12 – 17 days before it was due to be complete – for a few days after media attention on the issue.

A design for the works was not signed off until September, two months after the last-provided completion deadline and with a new completion date of October 31.

Now, a public meeting is said to have seen Cllr Charlotte Cupit, county council cabinet member for highways, say the landslip could “take years to fix” and says that the earliest date for any completed plans to be drawn up will be “next summer”.

Mr White told the LDRS: “We have put all of our life savings into this business and we do not want to be the fourth business to close. People need to be able to come and see us and to know we are still open. The last date we were told was October 31 – to reopen November 1 – and that is clearly not going to happen.

“We have been told it is Severn Trent’s fault and we have been told it is the county council’s fault and the buck is just being passed around.

“We don’t care if it takes a year or two more to get fixed but I need to know for the security of the business. We can’t make decisions without that. It was supposed to be fixed months ago. It is a struggle at the moment and it has all been a bit of a nightmare.”

A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council said: “We understand how difficult it has been for residents and local businesses in Lea, Holloway and Dethick over the last few years as a result of two major landslips and we are continuing work to resolve these issues as far as we can.

“Leashaw is the second road closure to have affected the area following a major landslip. Lea Road at Cromford closed in January 2020 and re-opened just before Leashaw had to be closed in November last year.

“We’re in regular contact with the Parish Council about the situation on Leashaw, and most recently met with representatives from the Parish Council on site this week. We also provide regular updates specifically about the landslip to members of the public who signed-up to receive our bulletins on email, as well as posting regular updates on our website.

“As a major water pipe, owned by Severn Trent, sits under the road, they were initially going to undertake the work to fix the landslip, but this offer was withdrawn over the Summer. As a result, we had to seek approval from them so we could progress the work, which was confirmed at the end of September.

“Prior to Storm Babet we were finalising plans to reopen the road to a single lane of traffic past the area next to the landslip. Unfortunately, unprecedented rainfall during the storm has caused further ground movement and so we need to continue to monitor the ground before we can safely reopen to traffic. If the landslip doesn’t move any further or cause any further problems, we should be able to open the road on one side before Christmas and we are continuing work towards this.

“We have put up signage in the area including ‘businesses open as usual’ and signs to mark the diversion route, but we will review the signage in place to make sure it is still adequate. We ask that businesses don’t put up their own signage as this can cause issues and direct traffic from the official diversion route.

“We would be happy to speak with the affected businesses to discuss the situation in more detail and will continue to keep the community updated as the above plans progress.”