{"id":361524,"date":"2026-01-09T20:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/361524\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T20:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:43:07","slug":"row-over-repairs-to-badger-damaged-east-halton-road-resolved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/361524\/","title":{"rendered":"Row over repairs to badger-damaged East Halton road resolved"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parts of College Road were closed in October<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Natural England previously said it issued the council with a licence on 13 October “to carry out this work ahead of the badger breeding season”.<\/p>\n

The council said it then built an “alternative badger sett to allow repairs to go ahead”, but the badgers returned to their original sett.<\/p>\n

Badger setts are legally protected and it is a criminal offence to interfere with one without government approval.<\/p>\n

Waltham said the lifting of restrictions would make “a real difference” for residents of East Halton.<\/p>\n

“This has never been just about a stretch of road. It’s been about residents facing long detours, farmers trying to run their businesses, and a community feeling cut off. Being able to get spades in the ground again is a crucial turning point,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to the council, the existing road surface would be removed in February, with full reconstruction starting in the spring, meaning the road could reopen as early as May.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson for Natural England said the body had “provided the necessary licence on time”, each time the council had applied. <\/p>\n

“The licences enable the work to progress,” they added.<\/p>\n

“We fully understand the difficulties the villagers were experiencing and are pleased the issues have been resolved.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parts of College Road were closed in October. Natural England previously said it issued the council with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-361524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}