DEVON County Council has said work on a stretch of road that has seen temporary traffic lights in place for more than a year should be finished by mid July.
Temporary traffic lights were put in place, but drivers saw little evidence of action at the site for many months.
Last month work finally started, and a 10mph speed limit and convoy system was put in place while the road is strengthened and a safety barrier installed.
And now the county council says the workforce will be doing a six day week in an effort to complete the repairs before the school summer holidays begin. Providing weather conditions are favourable, it hopes to have the work completed by July 15.
A Devon County Council spokesman said: ’Public safety is our prime concern, and one lane of this section of the road is closed, with temporary lights, because the road is subsiding and is not safe.
’It doesn’t normally take this long to design a structural repair scheme but the investigation work was seriously hampered by the location of a gas main under the road. A further complication arose following preparatory vegetation clearance which identified the need for a risk assessment to determine if a safety barrier was now required.
’The outcome is a significant length of barrier is required to safeguard the highway user from what is a significant drop.’
In April last year, a county council spokesman told the Gazette that as an A road, repairs to the route would be treated as ’high priority’.