Virginia Street ‘Sink Hol’e stopped from becoming ‘Flood Hole’
A local councillor has intervened to stop a ‘sink hole’ on Virginia Street becoming a ‘flood hole’ and potentially destroying more highway.
On Saturday night, Southport’s Lib Dem Deputy Leader Councillor Tony Dawson spotted some water in the gutter of Virginia Street near Lidl where a sink hole had already been fenced off, blocking half the carriageway. On Sunday morning, he returned to see the sink hole full of foul water which was pouring down the road to the second-nearest drain (the nearest one was completely blocked). Cllr Dawson called the Council’s emergency number and notified Police of the potential hazard using 101.
Councillor Dawson returned on Sunday afternoon when the Council’s inspectors arrived and he came back late on Sunday night to discuss the problem with the Dowhigh Contractors who were less than pleased at having to deal with a problem which had been allowed to fester for so long. The contractors worked well into the night and the water is now being pumped away. Temporary traffic lights have been installed on Virginia Street.
Councillor Dawson has called once again for a review of present Council policy on sink holes which is “Fill 2 or 3 times before you investigate.”
” This appears to be a fine policy for pot holes but not for sink holes which are almost always due to underground water erosion causing a collapse of the tarmacced surface into a chasm of various size.”
” What concerns me is that, at Virginia Street, in the weeks since I first reported this problem, there has obviously been a further worsening of the water flow undeground during the time that no work has been going on.”
“There was a very real possibility of the hole spreading to completely undermine the North-bound carriageway of Virginia Street here and hence completely closing off a quite busy road, part of Southport town centre’s eastern ringroad. The extra cost has already been substantial and may be more.”
” I have noticed the three sink holes at the Hawkshead Street/Windsor Road junction beginning to form again (sizable surface dips) and the hole by 13 Westcliffe Road, Birkdale, which has been filled and patched several times, is re-creating a dip meaning there is almost certain further water action under the surface there. I have asked the Council to take a close look at these sites as well as their overall policy”
https://www.otsnews.co.uk/drivers-warned-of-dangerous-sink-hole-in-virginia-street-southport/
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