When it was first reported, they said the owners of the flat (an elderly couple) refused to sell their house and land so the government built the road around it. I remember thinking there's no way they would be able to hold on to this and true enough, they've capitulated and sold the house and land.
If you think of the house as a hill on a piece of land and the roads built around as a fast flowing river, what basically happens is that the river will slowly wear down the land, making it smaller and smaller and the hill would slowly erode as well. If this was a small, side road, the story would have been quite different but it is a motorway (a strong, ferocious water flow).
It's good that he sold the flat. To be situated right in the centre of things like that is precarious and makes the house very vulnerable. You want to live in a place with strong foundations, not something which makes you feel you are under siege. The inhabitants of the house would probably have fallen ill and finances would have taken a beating. Not something you would want if you were an elderly couple.
