Concern has been raised about a sinkhole in Sutton Coldfield which appeared weeks before Christmas, but has yet to be repaired with residents claiming ‘it’s been abandoned’. The sinkhole appeared in Walsall Road in Little Aston, a busy road and bus route linking Sutton Coldfield with Aldridge, Walsall and beyond back in November.
At first four-way traffic lights were installed as the issue with the road was investigated, but on Monday, December 16, the road was shut off to through traffic. And it remains closed in January, with the expected opening date of Monday, January 6 missed, and now pushed back by weeks.
A nearby resident, who asked not to be named, said the roadworks were causing ‘misery to commuters’ adding site appeared to have been ‘abandoned’. He said he had not seen workers there for some time.
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He said the closure was forcing traffic to go through Little Aston village causing tailbacks during the two daily rush hours, and most notably along Little Aston Lane. He said: “Huge amounts of rush hour traffic was feeding back before Christmas diverted down Little Aston Lane near Pat the Butchers, with long delays causing misery to commuters.
“Or through the private roads of the Little Aston Park Estate to avoid the closure. This has been going on for weeks since Staffordshire County Council found the sinkhole, whilst patching the road in preparation for surface dressing works later next year.
“It feels that as Little Aston, whilst within Staffordshire, is far from Stafford, the sinkhole works have been forgotten about. The rush hour traffic still has to divert down Little Aston Lane this year, and filters all the way from the traffic lights at Pat the Butchers to the end of the lane, and then back down Walsall Road, so around half a mile of stuck traffic.”
Walsall Road in Little Aston has been closed off while a sinkhole is investigated as it was considered to be a ‘danger to the public’ while Severn Trent look into the issue
He continued: “The congestion is both morning and evenings, with the eastbound direction being particularly impacted due to the traffic lights on the Rosemary Hill junction not being designed to handle that volume of diverted traffic, many trying to turn right onto Rosemary Hill Road to follow the diversion.
“It still seems like no one are doing any works on the sinkhole. Every time I go past, there aren’t any workers on site and it looks abandoned. And with it being discovered mid-November, you would hope that investigations would now be complete and a plan to repair this heavily used main road linking Sutton with Aldridge and Walsall.”
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The Little Aston resident also claimed school children were struggling to catch the bus after services were initially diverted away from Little Aston, along Rosemary Hill Road to Streetly and on Chester Road, back to its usual route. But since the new year, buses have followed the same diversion as cars ‘past Pat the Butchers’ and along Little Aston Lane.
Another resident, who lives in nearby Four Oaks, also said he had not seen workers at the site and he too was concerned it had been ‘abandoned’.
The sinkhole has appeared beside a Severn Trent Water manhole cover with the utility company saying it has yet to detect the cause of the fault almost two months after it was spotted
A post on the One Network roadworks website says the road has been closed since December 16 for ‘highways investigation works’. The plan was to ‘Dig down and investigate void in Carriageway adjacent to STW [Severn Trent Water] manhole.
Staffordshire County Council said it was aware of the closure but it was a ‘Severn Trent Water issue’. A spokesman for Severn Trent said: “Our teams are currently investigating our network to help understand the cause of the sinkhole and if it’s linked to the Severn Trent network or not.
“While we’ve not detected anything and the network is operating as it should, we are carrying out more advanced checks. Anything we find we will feedback to the council and support them with any further investigations.”