Burrowing badgers cause £100,000 damage to road

Badgers tunnelling under a road in Lincolnshire have caused £100,000 worth of damage, a council has said.

The mammals had dug a sett under the A52 at Seaholme Road, in the middle of Mablethorpe, according to Lincolnshire County Council.

Emergency repairs to the road would have to be carried out to stop it falling apart, a spokesperson for the authority said.

However, the council had had to wait for a licence from Natural England before the work could be carried out because badgers were a protected species, they added.

The authority had wanted to carry out the repairs earlier, but now the licence had been granted, it was running out of time to do the emergency work, according to the spokesperson.

All work on badger setts must be completed between July and the end of November so the repairs did not interfere with the badgers' mating season, they explained.