Gas pipe repair to cause traffic disruption on major town centre road

Essential work is set to repair a gas pipe under a busy town centre road.

Cadent Gas engineers will begin the work late on Friday, October 18, after a gas smell was traced to a distribution pipe under Royle Road, at the junction with the A679 roundabout, the centre of Burnley.

Engineers have taken action to ensure safety, but more work is needed to prevent further risk.

The gas network has agreed with local authority highways teams to start work after Burnley College finishes on October 18.

From this point, there will be no access from Royle Road to the roundabout (Active Way).

The lane heading towards the college and the M65 motorway will remain open, but motorists should expect delays.

Cadent's teams will work through the weekend, digging a deep excavation and repairing the pipe. The gas will remain on during this work.

Nick Jerman, head of customer operations at Cadent, said: "Our teams have already taken action to keep everyone safe and to keep gas flowing to the local area.

"We do need to investigate this fully and carry out a repair.

"This is a busy traffic area and there is really no quiet time to get this work done.

"We have tried hard – working with the local authority – to minimise the disruption as best we can.

"We have everything in place to work on this through the weekend [October 18 to 20] but must stress that completing everything will be a huge task and we cannot guarantee.

"We hope everyone understands our priority has to be safety."