A new agonising chapter seems to have begun in a Devon town’s efforts to reopen one of its key roads.

Dartmouth’s Warfleet Road has been closed since February 2024 when a resident’s wall collapsed, rendering the vital route impassable.

Residents have campaigned heavily in a bid to secure an outcome, even taking their plight to full council meetings at the Exeter headquarters of Devon County Council.

But while the county council is responsible for Devon’s roads, it isn’t legally responsible for rebuilding walls that belong to private landowners.

That means there has been an impasse, because the council doesn’t want to pay to repair the wall when it doesn’t have a statutory duty to do so, and hasn’t felt able to reopen Warfleet Road until the wall is fixed.

Now, the county council, which confirmed that the wall had not been fixed, outlined the latest situation.

“Devon County Council is responsible for the repair and maintenance of Warfleet Road, but not the wall,” a spokesperson for the council said.

“There is currently an ongoing legal process with the wall owner’s insurers and we are doing everything we can to resolve the matter.

“We apologise for the inconvenience that the continued closure of the road is causing.”

Councillor Simon Rake (Liberal Democrat, Dartmouth), who represents the town on the county council, said residents were “hoping for a resolution soon”.

“Everyone at the county council is very aware of the situation and that it is causing significant inconvenience to our residents, and that’s why we are working hard to get it sorted out,” he said.

“There are similar situations elsewhere in the county, but with Warfleet Road, as soon as it makes sense to repair the road, we will, but we can’t until the wall is fixed.”

Last year, Dartmouth residents submitted a petition with around 2,500 signatures calling for action over the road, which at that point had been closed for a year.

Residents claim that warnings about the state of a wall along Warfleet Road were sent to the council in 2023, but that a lack of action meant it ultimately collapsed.

Lindsay Ellwood, a member of Warfleet Road Warriors, a campaign group, submitted a petition to Devon County Council at its full council meeting in February last year, pleading for the road to be fixed.

At that meeting, she told the county council that the community had an anticipated finish date for work of 30 September 2025, and claimed there had been five other occasions that Devon had committed to repair the road but it had not been done.

“Devon Highways is required to maintain the road and the council has the responsibility to reopen one of the two main thoroughfares in and out of Dartmouth,” Ms Ellwood said at the time.

“Now it is a four-mile round-trip to reach the centre of Dartmouth.”

She added that the road is a vital route for the emergency services, and that residents and businesses are desperate to know when work would commence.

A petition over the issue still exists on Change.org, and has 896 verified signatures.