Cumberland Council have said it is ‘too soon’ to provide a date for the reopening of Ivegill Road after the discovery of a privately owned sewer had a ‘serious impact’ on work.

Ivegill Road is currently closed to help facilitate work on the Carlisle Southern Link Road (CSLR) project which will connect Junction 42 of the M6 with the A595 to the west.

Major work is being undertaken across Carlisle and the surrounding area in order to complete the majority of the work by October 2025.

During their work on Ivegill Road, contractors found an uncharted rising main which has forced them to alter their plans for the works.

The council have said that the discovery has delayed and changed the dates for diverting the utilities.

They have said that this takes time because homeowners and business in the areas impacted need to be aware of any new dates for any temporary loss of their service.

Electricity North West (ENW) are on site and on track to complete their work in the next two weeks and United Utilities will then complete their work by the end of November.

BT are planning to come to do their work in December by which time contractors will then be able to safely return and complete the earthworks, drainage, surfacing, lining and signing.

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A spokesperson for Cumberland Council said: “We understand the impact and the disruption this extended closure has caused, and we sincerely thank you for your continued patience.

“Since our last update, we’ve been addressing the challenges associated with working around the uncharted rising main - a privately owned sewer - that we unexpectedly found along the Ivegill Road.

“The identification of this has had a serious impact on our plans for how we work in this area.

“What has made this more challenging is that several of our partners also have their own county wide programme of work that they need to adjust to accommodate the delay.

“A huge thank you to the teams involved and our contractor Galliford Try. Everyone has worked hard on resequencing the work of a wide variety of teams.

“It is too soon to provide a date for the route to reopen. We will provide another update in December.”