Government rejects major funding plea for Snake Pass repairs

The Government has all but rejected a plea from three regional mayors and a county council to directly fund and manage hundreds of millions of pounds of repairs on a Derbyshire route.

A planned pitch to central Government is in the works to fund repairs to the landslip-hit Snake Pass, backed by three regional Labour mayors, with the route dubbed “nationally critical”.

For years, politicians and residents have called for action on Snake Pass, one of the UK’s highest roads, running between Manchester and Sheffield through the Derbyshire Peak District.

The next step in that process has now begun, with Claire Ward, Labour’s East Midlands Mayor – who now has the public transport brief – working with Derbyshire County Council on a business case for long-needed costly repairs to major landslips on the route.

However, the Department for Transport (DfT) has instead directed the Mayor and county council to existing funding and alternative sources of money, saying the route is ultimately for Derbyshire and the East Midlands to resolve.

Derbyshire is home to 200 landslips and four of these are on the Snake Pass route, with one – known as Alport – said to be in need of hundreds of millions of pounds to repair.

With wider investment via the East Midlands Combined County Authority, the county council has seen highways maintenance increase to £37 million and funding for capital schemes is reaching £70 million.

However, this spending still falls far short of what is required on Snake Pass alone, officials have made clear, and would also come at the expense of every other road in the county.

Late last year Ms Ward held joint talks with Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Mayor, and Oliver Coppard, South Yorkshire Mayor, with one core topic including the future of Snake Pass.

She said the three mayors had agreed that sole responsibility for the route “should not fall solely on Derbyshire”.

Now Ms Ward has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service about the next steps, saying: “It is a nationally strategic piece of infrastructure and it shouldn’t be left to Derbyshire County Council (DCC) alone to fund that, precisely because it is not just for my residents in the High Peak but also for residents in Sheffield and Manchester too

“We are very much, the three Mayors, of the view that this should be nationally supported. 

My authority and my officers are working with DCC to put together a proposal to understand “what funding is needed. 

“Clearly we have some funding available but the level of funding for Snake Pass is beyond what we can put into it, so it does require a national focus.

“It is not right to leave this critical piece of infrastructure for three regions dependent on one county council, and that is no criticism of DCC, it is simply saying you cannot expect any authority of that size to be responsible for something of that nature.”

She confirmed that the Mayors were asking for the Government to take control of the project to see it completed as efficiently and promptly as possible.

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.”

Transport officials 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.

More than 30,000 vehicles a week use Snake Pass, the highest road in Derbyshire, and officials told the LDRS in late 2024 that the route faces a perilous future.

They detailed the route was in a constant state of slipping, with “interventions”  needed more frequently than ever before, down to six to 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 fund or 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.

The crash barrier at Gillott Hey itself is slipping down the hillside, with brackets such as this supposed to be pointing upwards but now leaning backwards and sideways.