Damage caused by badgers to a Lincolnshire road ‘has turned out to be much more severe than previously thought,’ the highway authority has said.

Lincolnshire County Council had planned to carry out repairs to the A52 Seaholme Road in Mablethorpe under a 48-hour road closure last weekend after badgers dug under the structure.

The original plan was for expert teams to move the badgers and seal up their sett but whilst the specialists were under the road securing a known set of tunnels, a second set was found.

The newly discovered tunnels are 'a full 1-1.5m deep' and have run under the second half of the road, under the utilities buried at the site, which is why they were not found by the first survey, the council said.

It said it will not now be able to lift the road closure and return to temporary traffic lights as first planned and that, because of the extra excavation, and the nearby A1104 roadworks, it ‘has had to come up with a new plan, speedily’.

Seaholme Road will remain under full closure whilst the new set of badger tunnels is dealt with, and the road reinstatement works are carried out against a deadline of the end of the month, because of the conditions of the licence from Natural England.

Richard Davies, the council’s executive member for highways, said: ‘The frustration with getting these badger works sorted is growing. We are working as hard as we can to restore this road so that the people of Mablethorpe can get on with their daily lives in the way they expect.’

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