RESIDENTS have been diverting cars round a sinkhole which cropped up in Bournemouth.
A sinkhole, measuring approximately one metre in length and width and one metre deep, appeared in Grove Road, Bournemouth on Monday, April 3.
Steve Rowland, who has his own gardening contracting business and was working in nearby East Cliff, discovered the sinkhole this morning and said it is “the biggest one he has ever seen”.
He said: “I’ve never seen a sinkhole like this. At first, I thought it was a pothole until I saw it closer.
“The council said it was a collapsed barrier and four vans turned up to attend to it. I’m told the soil had gone through a broken pipe.
“I was driving on the road to get some equipment and initially thought it was a pothole. There was a cone already in the road.”
Mr Rowland, with the help of passersby, assisted in alerting drivers in the road to the sinkhole.
The police were also called. A spokeswoman for the force said: “We received a report at 10.11am of a large pothole in Grove Road in Bournemouth. Local authority are dealing.”
A BCP Council spokesperson said: “The reported sink hole in Grove Road has been attended by one of our crews.
“The site is now barriered off, pending investigation. Once this has concluded, repairs will take place.”
She added Wessex Water will be repairing the sinkhole as an issue with the sewer has caused it to form.
This isn’t the first time a sinkhole has appeared in recent months.
In March a sinkhole appeared in Courtenay Road, Poole, before a woman drove her Skoda Fabia into it.
Resident Chris, aged in her 70s, said: “Two guys in the road got a long plank of fairly sturdy wood and some blocks and they were levering it up.
“It then got up far enough for them to lift it more onto the wood and then a guy drove it off.”
In January, a wheelie bin was used to warn residents over a sinkhole in the middle Bower Road, also in Bournemouth.
One resident described the site as ‘dangerous’ and is calling for warnings to be put in place for motorists.
He said: “My wife had been out in the car, and as she was driving round the corner, a woman had jumped out to stop her from driving into it.
BCP Council urges people to report potholes and other highway issues via the BCP Council website Potholes, damaged roads or footpaths (bcpcouncil.gov.uk).
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