The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides.
At 22:55 local time on 7 March 2025, a significant rockfall occurred on Belgrave Road in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight in southern England. Whilst the event was not large in scale compared with many of which I write, this can probably be classified as a near-miss. The collapse, on a site with known stability issues, completely covered the road.
This is a still from the video:-
The location of this collapse is [50.59421, -1.20748]. This is a Google Street Map view of the site, collected in August 2024:-
Yahoo News has a series of articles about the collapse and the history of the site. The rock mass appears to have been on private land, which may have made its management more complex. It is interesting that this collapse occurred during a period of unseasonably warm early Spring weather.
The local Member of Parliament has also weighed in on the issue, referring to the long term issues regarding the stability of Ventnor. Personally, I think the criticism of the local authority is somewhat misplaced. This is the largest urbanised landslide complex in NW Europe, for which the Isle of Wight Council has taken a very proactive approach. Managing a hazard on this scale, with this level of complexity, is extremely difficult. We discussed the issues at Ventnor in a paper (Carey et al. 2014) a decade ago.
If anyone wants to get involved, the Isle of Wight Council has a very interesting role available:-
Community Coordinator – Landslide and Coastal Change.
The closing date is 16 March 2025.
Reference
Carey, J.M., Moore, R. and Petley, D.N. 2015. Patterns of movement in the Ventnor landslide complex, Isle of Wight, southern England. Landslides, 12, 1107-1118 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10346-014-0538-1