Sinking feeling in Leeds
Page 10
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• Truck drivers faced disruption when a West Yorkshire motorway subsided just two months after its official opening.
Two lanes of the £200m M1-Al link road, which lies to the East of Leeds, had to be closed after subsidence set in.
Yorkshire Link, the private firm which runs the motorway, says it discovered a drop in a 10-metre stretch of both carriageways on either side of the £9m Aire Valley viaduct.
A Yorkshire Link spokesman says: "There was a slight settlement, about an inch of the road dropped. This is not unusual, it can occur when he road is bedding in." The northbound lanes of the road on both sides of the viaduct were closed for a day, with the southbound lane being used temporarily to cater for both traffic directions. The process was then reversed as workmen replaced the black top.
The link is the largest project to date for the Government's new Design, Build, Finance and operate scheme. Under the scheme, Yorkshire Link charges an undisclosed toll to the Government for every vehicle that uses the motorway.
The Yorkshire Link spokesman adds: "We cannot give any guarantee that this will not happen again—but we are confident that this is a one-off."