DORMICE have been blamed by a senior council officer for continued delays to the repair of the A40 rockfall on the Wales and England border betwen Monmouth and Ganarew.

The carriageway north towards Ross-on-Wye was hit by rockfall in February 2024, and 14 months on is closed for several hundred yards beyond Dixton roundabout, with two-way single lane traffic currently operating on the southbound carriageway.

Delays in the repair project, which is the responsibility of the UK Government’s National Highways agency, have included ecological precautions and assessment of the potential for further rockfalls.

The A40 Safety campaign group has previously revealed that the site of the road above the River Wye's Leys bend, was historically prone to landslips, including during its construction in the 1960s.

And claiming that "dormice” had been used "to excuse months of inactivity", group chair and expert in surveying Andy Smith told the Beacon on the anniversary of the rockfall in February that National Highways needed to "stop dithering and assess the situation both above and below the carriageways, both thoroughly and quickly".

But Carl Touhig, Monmouthshire County Council’s senior officer for highways, has now told the council’s public services scrutiny committee that dormice and other ecological concerns had genuinely delayed progress.

“At Leys Bend that work was put on hold because of concerns there may be dormice in the slippage itself and that put at least six months on to the job. It doesn’t take a lot," he said.

“I wouldn’t want to see dormice displaced, but it is a difficult thing for us when badgers, otters, dormice, bats and other species require special measures before we can go in and do work and adds a lot of time to our programmes.”

The Welsh Government has made £120m available in borrowing powers, for councils across Wales, to carry out road repairs this year.

Mr Touhig said the council was aware some it has applied for will be pushed back, but will prioritise using the funding, likely to be worth around £3.5m for Monmouthshire.

Mr Touhig also warned that rising costs in the construction industry have created a “fragile market” and many contractors are “struggling” to complete projects within contracts they signed four or more years ago, with costs having risen by 25 to 30 per cent since.

Monmouthshire could struggle to attract contractors for some of its schemes, he said, adding: “There’s 22 local authorities all having a share of £120m and all going out to the same contractors at the same time.

“The concern is Monmouthshire isn’t big enough and our projects aren’t big enough to attract the bigger contractors.

"We hope to do a lot internally using our own workforce, but if I put all my workers on putting down new tarmac there won’t be anyone doing drainage and winter maintenance, so we can’t do that.”

Mr Touhig said funding would also have to cover other associated costs including design, tendering, traffic management and publicity, as well as ecology schemes.