A specialist team is being drafted in to come up with a solution to get a tiny north-east village hit by a landslip fully accessible again.
Rope access experts will scale the cliff at Harbour Road in Gardenstown today to examine what can be done to prevent any further slippage.
Aberdeenshire Council’s head of roads and landscape services, Philip McKay, last night said it was his “ultimate aim” to get the road permanently open again.
Mud has been sliding down an embankment that faces the village and is now being kept off the road by a concrete wall that was installed by the local authority last month.
Yesterday, the road was temporarily opened for the first time since before Christmas.
Residents were given access so they could move their cars from the bottom of the road, and to allow the bins to be emptied.
Now a team of specialists – including rope access workers and other technical experts – will begin investigating how they can get the road fully open again.
Mr McKay said: “I think we are worried in as much that the current situation means we can’t open the road for unrestricted access.
“Our ultimate aim is get the public road open to people all the time because it provides access to the lower part of the village the harbour and the properties in that area.
“There’s been quite a bit of movement mainly of top soil and as it is coming down it is taking relatively large pieces of mud with it and if it wasn’t for the temporary wall we have in place at the minute that would be coming across onto the road.
“We are looking to do more inspection works and a team will be on site today just to see where we go from here.
“The temporary catch wall has done its job and now we need to make a decision on how we provide some protection so we can get the road reopened and that is our primary focus.
“We need to find a more long-term solution.”
Jim Wiseman, 81, welcomed the efforts to come up with a permanent solution and described the closure as an “inconvenience.”
“We are not able to leave the car at the door, it’s just an inconvenience that’s all.
“I have been in my house for 50 years and have never seen anything like this.”
Colin Wallek, 69, who lives in the lower half of Gardenstown, praised the council’s efforts and said: “The council have been good they have been offering to help in all ways and they have been trying to keep it open as much as possible.
“This is a problem all along the coast and it’s not one that is not going to be solved due to the land lying on the edge of the cliffs.
“It is a thing we will have to live with I suppose.”
Alexis Robinson also lives at the bottom and used the reopening of the road as a chance to top up her household supplies.
She said: “It’s a huge problem because I have to take my shopping down the stairs.
“It’s a nuisance, but are we supposed to do? I really hope they can find a long-term solution.”
Last night, a council spokeswoman confirmed the route will remain shut today.
She said: “The supervised opening went ahead yesterday as planned, from 9.30am till 3pm. The road is now closed again.
“Consultants were on site and carried out initial inspections, with more today. Because the slope is still unstable, and because we are hoping to have people on it doing the inspections tomorrow, we think that the risk of further slippages is increased.
“So, we have decided that the safest thing to do is to keep the road closed.
“We haven’t ruled out more supervised openings over the weekend, but that decision will all depend on the weather forecasts.”
