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Latest delay to roadworks 'a nightmare for firm'

Harry ParkhillPinchbeck
BBC The photo is framed by metal construction fencing on either side. Down the centre we can see a road with its surface stripped away. Cones and red barriers are scattered about, and yellow construction vehicles can be seen in the distance, as well as workers in high vis clothingBBC
Surfleet Road has been closed for "far too long", according to a council official

A fresh delay to controversial roadworks is an "utter nightmare" for a garden centre, its boss says.

Surfleet Road in Pinchbeck was due to reopen on 8 March, but work will now continue until at least April 17.

Gary Slator, managing director of Birchgrove Garden Centre, which has been cut off from the town, said "it could not be worse timing" because Easter was the busiest period of the year.

Lincolnshire County Council is fining Burmor Construction, which is responsible for the work, £2,000 a day. Burmor previously apologised for the delays.

The project to connect a housing estate to utilities has left customers of the garden centre facing a 7.5-mile (12km) diversion.

Last week, officials said they hoped the work would be completed on 29 March.

Slator said the latest delay could cost his business £20,000 over the Easter bank holiday weekend, compared with previous years.

a man with short grey hair and a stubble beard looks at the camera wearing a black jumper with blurred out garden furnitre behind him
Garden centre manager Gary Slator said a third delay to roadworks came in during his busiest month

"We just don't know what to do," he said. "Should we be ordering in plants, or not ordering in plants?

"It's just been terrible, the whole thing has been an utter nightmare and there's literally nothing we can do."

Ashley Behan, traffic manager at Lincolnshire County Council, said: "The road has been closed for 87 days, which I fully appreciate is far too long.

"It's in nobody's interest to be closed for any longer than it ought to be."

He expected the work to be completed between 17 and 19 April and said the council would be checking to ensure work was continuing over the bank holiday weekend.

The BBC has asked Burmor Construction to comment on the latest delay.

Luke Boekstyn, a director at the firm, previously said natural conditions, including groundwater and "runnings silts", were making the work "very difficult".

Burmor was "naturally disappointed and apologetic" that an extension had been necessary, he added.

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