Woman thanks community for fixing mystery garden sinkhole

Dorothy Rigby said she cannot wait to return to gardening now the sinkhole has been repaired

A woman has told how the kindness of strangers saved her having to move house after a giant sinkhole opened up in her garden.

Dorothy Rigby, 83, said she has been banished from much of her garden due to the crater which appeared in August.

She said she did not know what to do after both her home insurer and the council told her they could not help.

But local firms then stepped in and helped restore her beloved garden in Walton-le-Dale, near Preston.

Since its sudden appearance in August, Ms Rigby said the sinkhole continued to grow and left her worrying she could go the same way as many of her plants - which simply vanished into the void.

South Ribble Borough Council's environmental health team did an inspection of her drains but the authority said it was ultimately unable to help because the sinkhole had sprung up on private land.

Nick Whittle said he felt sorry for Ms Rigby and wanted to help

Ms Rigby said she was particularly disappointed that an engineer's report prepared by her home insurer was not shared with her, leaving her in the dark about the cause of the hole - and unsure how to tackle it once she was advised it was her responsibility to have it put right.

"They wouldn't tell me anything. So I just hope it doesn't happen again because we never found out what caused it in the first place," she said.

Vanessa Banks, of the British Geological Survey, said the "weight of limited evidence" from local data points to one particular option, which is likely to have been exacerbated by recent wet weather conditions.

Ms Rigby said the crater led her to consider leaving her home of almost 25 years "because I just felt so helpless". 

"My garden is my life and I'd really given up on it," she added.

Nick Whittle, 33, from Chorley-based NFW Landscapes and Paving removed all traces of the unwanted crater which had terrorised Ms Rigby for months with materials supplied by C&W Berry Builders' Merchants in Leyland and plants from Bannister Hall Nurseries in Higher Walton.

Mr Whittle explained the reason he and his 19-year-old colleague Rob Smith carried out the work.

"If it were my nan, I'd want someone to help. I just felt sorry for her. You could tell how much it meant to her," he said.

Ms Rigby said she now cannot wait to get cracking on tending to her garden again, adding: "I just can't thank everybody enough. I just can't wait for summer."