ENGINEERS have pledged that there will be no delay to the reopening of Beaminster Tunnel – despite difficult negotiations with one remaining landowner.

Dorset County Council engineers say there are still complex legal issues to finalise and they have not been able to put in soil stabilising nails on one section of the north slope.

Dorset County Council principal engineer for structures Matt Jones said if there was no agreement within the next two weeks they would have to come up with another – temporary - engineering solution so the road could be re-opened.

See a video of the work:

Dorset County Council chief engineer John Burridge added: “In the longer term we would then have to use our highways powers to take possession.”

The soil nailing is designed to give the slopes stability for the next 120 years but any temporary solution would only cover the next five year or so.

Mr Burridge said to put it into perspective the negotiations only involved 20 nails and there were more than 1000 being put in – 600 on the south side and 400 on the north.

From the start of the project the challenges have been huge – with around 700 tons of soil having to be removed, a five foot chasm left by the original landslide, working conditions that were described as a ‘nightmare’ by Raymond Brown site foreman Tom Lawrence – and the latest the discovery of an unexpectedly waterlogged patch on the approach to the south side where soil nailing won’t work, said Mr Burridge.

On a tour of the site for local media Mr Burridge explained some of the problems.

He said on the 25 metre deep test bore holes they found no rock – only green sand.

And that, he said, flows like liquid when it is wet.

So a new solution has had to be found for the very wet section and once specialist drainage pipes are in, the area will have to have rock-filled wire baskets to hold back the slope.

Mr Jones added: “Soil nailing in steep slopes in green sand presents a technical challenge and then there have been the timescales – with the pressure to get the job done as quickly as possible without compromising safety.

He added: “But our bottom line is it has to be done right.”

Raymond Brown site manager Terry Churchill said: “A lot of people don’t understand the risks involved working on the site.

“When it rains work more or less stops. The slopes are just too slippery to walk up or use machinery on.

“With the rain last week the surface was like a piece of ice.”

Mr Burridge said criticism that the work would have been completed sooner if it had been in somewhere like Bournemouth on a major trunk road was just ‘wrong’.

Mr Jones added that the construction budget of £2.1 was still on target but the total project costs would be nearer £2.5 million with the cost of design, testing and work on the diversion routes.