Council and home owners investigate after landslip under new Merimbula home

Dennis and Merilyn Souter own the land and have almost finished building their new home when a serious landslip closed one lane of Market St with earth and debris spilling onto the pavement and into the road.

"A friend phoned to let me know what had happened and I went to drive over but it was impossible because of the traffic and so I walked over. The builder was there and was diverting stormwater," Mr Souter said.

"It's not a good situation and I'm waiting for the builder to get back to me and we'll have to get an engineer's report done," Mr Souter said.

The landslip and subsequent closure of one lane on Market St left traffic backing up across the causeway and back into the CBD.

Continued rain had caused erosion and taken vegetation, debris and earth into the roadway, leaving much of the underneath area exposed. There are also some exposed pipes showing following the landslip.

Council staff attended the landslip and council said further assessment would need to take place after the clean up.

Mr Souter said the land concerned was not his property but council's.

"The edge of the deck is the edge of my boundary," he said.

He has been concerned about the effect of the existing vegetation on the steep piece of land under his new home.

"I asked if council would trim it and we offered to pay for it but council said 'no'," Mr Souter said.

He said there had also been discussions with council about building retaining walls and offers to pay for the work but no agreement had been reached.

Acting director assets and operations, Ian Macfarlane said now the immediate clearing and safety works had been completed, council would be investigating how the landslip occurred and what remediation was required.

"Previous requests from the owner to remove or reduce vegetation from the slope are a separate issue not related to yesterday's landslip," Mr Macfarlane said.

"Council will continue to work with property owners throughout the investigation and remediation process to ensure all parties are aware of the findings and actions required."

In the meantime Mr Souter is worried that the weight of water on the remaining vegetation and partularly a large tree growing out of the steep incline, will cause more erosion.

The amount of slippage has revealed the edge of Mr Souter's deck on the property and now there are questions about the state of the support underpinning of the deck, which he said will need to be assessed.