A leading politician has said he is confident of receiving money to progress repairs to a road in Wrexham which was closed by a landslide 12 months ago.

The B5605 between Newbridge and Cefn Mawr was severely damaged during Storm Christoph last January, when torrential downpours caused part of it to collapse down an embankment.

There have been repeated calls for the Welsh Government to bring an end to the disruption to local communities by announcing funding to fix it.

It comes as further damage has occurred to the road over the last year, with residents forced to take lengthy diversions to get to work or school.

Investigation work has recently been carried out to assess the extent of the repairs required.

And the deputy leader of Wrexham Council said he had been given assurances that money to pay for it would be forthcoming once a bid is made.

He also defended ministers following criticism of the time taken for the devolved government to provide funding.

Cllr David A Bithell, the local authority's lead member for environment and transport, told a meeting held yesterday: “There have been various comments been put out about the lack of money that we've had.

“To be fair to the Welsh Government, we’ve had £175,000 for the preparatory work and geotechnical work that we requested with our consultants for Newbridge.

“Verbally I've had commitments from Welsh Government that our business case for Newbridge will be looked at favourably when it's submitted.

“Clearly, we're pushing our contractor as best we can, but I have to say that the Welsh Government’s been very cooperative with everything that we've tried to do.”

Council leader Mark Pritchard previously hit out at the ongoing wait for money after claiming it was evidence of a "north-south divide" in Wales.

It followed an initial bid for the government to foot the bill being rejected as it did not meet its criteria.

Darren Williams, the authority's chief officer for environment and technical, said it was aiming to have contractors in place to repair the road as soon as possible.

However, he cautioned members of the council's homes and environment scrutiny committee over the length of time it might take.

He said: “The embankment has actually slipped all the way into the river, right the way to the riverbank at the bottom from 30 to 50 feet up to the road.

“It really does depend as to where the slip starts and finishes.

“Are we just seeing a bottom pile of rubble down in the riverbank or are we seeing a fundamental slip which has gone all the way through?

“The work will enable us to understand that and then we need to design the solution.

“We would hope that we will be able to make a strong case to the Welsh Government within this financial year to get the funding to enable us to do the repair.”