Landslips on a key inter-city route between Sheffield and Manchester could force the road to close if repair costs get too high.

Charlotte Culpit, cabinet member for transport on Derbyshire County Council, said repairs for landslips along the Snake Pass are now carried out more often than bnefpre - from every 5-10 years, roughly 30 years ago, to every six months in the modern day.

“The only thing we can put it down to is the increase in extreme weather events,” councillor Culpit told The Star.

She said the geology of the road, first built over 200 years ago, made it particularly at risk of landslips - with the regularity of issues increasing with more “extreme rainfall and snowfall”.

Snake Pass has been closed for safety reasons during recent storms. | Ian Harvey

placeholder image — Snake Pass has been closed for safety reasons during recent storms. | Ian Harvey

It is putting additional financial strain on the authority, as major repairs can become multi-million-pound projects which the council cannot afford.

Coun Culpit said: “At the moment, we have only been able to do minor patching repairs... We do the smaller, ‘plaster’ repairs.

“We really should have a pro-active strategy on this, but there is the risk that a landslip could take out the road.

Councillor Charlotte Culpit said the increasing regularity of extreme weather events is worsening landslips along roads like Snake Pass. | Derbyshire County Council

“Some of the laybys there have people parking where the road used to be because [the road has] slowly gone down the hill.”

Coun Culpit confirmed that, in effect, a major landslip which the council could not afford could close the road indefinitely to motorists until the money is obtained for a repair.

“We would always look to fix Snake,” she said, “We will do everything we can to keep it open. We know how important it is.

A person drives a car past a landscape covered in snow and along Snake Pass on January 8, 2025, after heavy snow and rain across large parts of England caused disruption. | AFP via Getty Images

“I hope we can keep it open and have a longer term, pro-active plan and that’s for all our roads in Derbyshire.”

Councillors are keen for a specific ‘landslips fund’ to help them with repairs, as they say landslips happen with a regularity unique to Derbyshire.

“The two options are for a government landslips fund or through the regional mayor,” Coun Culpit said. “We have met with [Mayor Clare Ward] and raised it and, of course, the government too.

Councillor Culpit says the county council does not have the money to make major repairs. | Getty Images

“Otherwise, any landslips we do repair has to come out of our highways budget.”

However, the Department for Transport has previously said it was “not responsible for Snake Pass” and “does not hold contingency funding for major repairs of this sort".

Coun Culpit said: “Rather than looking at shiny new things like bypasses, which are important, we need to look after what we have got.”

Snake Pass has been one of the major inter-city routes between Sheffield and Manchester for hundreds of years and is still regularly used today.

Motorists are now signposted to travel via Woodhead Pass to the north, but the scenic Snake Pass is still a popular route when open.

It has become increasingly popular with cyclists and walkers, who recently have been able to continue using the route when it has been closed to motorists for repairs.