Snake Pass: Plea for Government to fund repairs on landslip-hit route into Sheffield all but rejected
A plea for the Government to fund hundreds of millions of pounds of repairs on a major road between Sheffield and Manchester have all but been rejected.
A bid to central Government to fund repairs on the landslip-hit Snake Pass was made last year by South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard and his counterparts in Greater Manchester and East Midlands, who dubbed the route “nationally critical.”
However, the Department for Transport has directed East Midlands Mayor, Claire Ward, to existing funding, saying the route is for Derbyshire and the East Midlands to resolve.
The Snake Pass has four landslips and two sets of temporary lights. It is scheduled to close completely between June 15 and July 3 for ‘intrusive ground investigation’ works near the summit. Another landslip – known as Alport – is said to need hundreds of millions of pounds to repair.
Last year Ms Ward held joint talks with Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Mayor, and Oliver Coppard to discuss the future of the pass. They agreed that sole responsibility for the route “should not fall solely on Derbyshire.”
This week, Ms Ward told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We are very much of the view that this should be nationally supported.
“It is not right to leave this critical piece of infrastructure for three regions dependent on one county council.”
But officials at the DfT said it was for the combined authority to match existing funding with local priorities and that it was for councils to maintain and improve their networks based on their local knowledge and circumstances, with the responsibility for Snake Pass resting solely with the county council and under the combined authority.
A DfT spokesperson said: “While it is for DCC to maintain this iconic road, last year we announced a new Structures Fund to help councils renew highways, bridges, flyovers and tunnels, and we will set out next steps in due course.
“We are already providing the East Midlands Combined County Authority with £2 billion in Transport for City Regions funding over the next six years so they can invest in their local transport network, wherever they see fit.”
More than 30,000 vehicles a week use the Snake Pass, the highest road in Derbyshire, and officials told the LDRS in late 2024 that the route faces a perilous future.
They said it was in a constant state of slipping, with “interventions” needed more frequently than ever, up to every 12 months, from a previous typical gap of eight years, due to increasing bouts of heavy rain caused by climate change.
Officials were clear that stop-gap repairs were all that were possible within a county council budget.
They said they would like to keep the route open but that a “cataclysmic” landslip, which would be near-impossible to fix, could never be ruled out.
In July last year, the Government announced £7.6 million for safety improvements along the 23-mile Snake Pass route, dubbed one of the most “high risk” in the country, including average safety cameras, improved barriers, better surfacing and a junction upgrade.
Collision data submitted to the Department for Transport stated that between 2018-2023, there were five fatalities, 62 serious and 102 slight collision casualties on Snake Pass.