Collapsed cliff next to busy Mansfield road will finally be permanently fixed – four years on

Part of a nearby cliff collapsed onto Rock Hill on November 21, 2019, just after 9am.

No-one was injured, but it needed temporary work to prevent further risk of collapse.

The incident came just weeks after a separate major quarry landslide forced residents to evacuate their homes in part of Berry Hill.

Mansfield and Nottinghamshire councils worked together to find a solution to the Rock Hill incident.

Temporary barriers were placed across half of the left-hand lane on the road heading out of the town, which have now been in place for more than three years.

Plans and conversations have been ongoing ever since about a more long-term solution.

Now a major development in the works after Mansfield Council approved a decision to find a civil engineer for the project.

The £30,000 procurement will find an engineer to design a solution to protect the cliff face from collapsing again.

The authority says this work is aimed at finding a way to prevent any erosion of the sloped cliff and to protect motorists from any future collapses.

Approving the procurement, Martyn Saxton, head of planning and regeneration, said, in a newly published report: “The council will procure a civil engineer to design a remediation solution in respect of a slope failure at Rock Hill.

“It is necessary to install a rock/soil barrier to prevent further slippage of a slope adjacent to Rock Hill.

“In order to do this, the council needs to appoint a civil engineer to design the preferred solution to prevent any further erosion and to obtain quotes from main contractors for carrying out the works.

“The estimated cost will be about £30,000 for the civil engineer appointment.”

It comes a year after a councillor called for the removal of existing barriers in the road because the solution “can’t go on forever”.

Coun Andre Camilleri, Nottinghamshire Council member for Mansfield South, said: “Somebody is going to get injured in there unless it all gets sorted, if kids got in and it collapsed it would be very dangerous.”

The county council, the local highways authority, said traffic measures will remain until the “best solution” is found.