Newark: End in sight on work to fill in town sinkhole

The Queen's Road sinkhole opened in April

Work to fill in a sinkhole that has closed a road in a town for about nine months is entering its final phase.

The sinkhole in Queen's Road, Newark, opened up in April and Nottinghamshire County Council initially expected it to reopen last summer.

But the work has taken far longer than initially expected and the road is still closed.

Highways bosses have now confirmed they expect to reopen the road in February - as long as there are no further delays.

Motorists have faced diversions to reach businesses in and near to Queen's Road for about nine months.

Matthew Coupland, who runs a garage in Queen's Road, said the closure had made it difficult for customers to reach them and had damaged his trade.

He said: "This is increasingly frustrating, it's going to be a year to replace some pipework along a 200-metre stretch of road.

"Access is ridiculous with customers having to drive illegally on to the wrong side of the road to get to us."

Matthew Coupland said the impact of the sinkhole had been "frustrating"

A highways manager at Nottinghamshire County Council said the work required to fix a culvert under the road had proven to be "complex", as it is a large structure made of Victorian brick, which is more than 11ft (3.5m) below the surface of the road and stretches several hundred metres.

A specialist camera had to be placed into the culvert to assess the damage.

Workers have also faced more recent delays due to storms, which have filled the culvert with water and stopped further work for the time being.

A county council spokesperson said: "Every day the contractors are on-site and not able to work incurs additional costs, so we felt the best option was to remove the contractors from the site until conditions improve enough for the work to continue."

The spokesperson added they could not comment on individual cases, but the issue of compensation for businesses affected would be dealt with by its insurance company.

Repairs are now expected to resume on Monday, with a provisional end date of February depending on the weather.

Storm Isha is forecast to bring wind and rain from Sunday, with a yellow weather warning for rain in place over Nottinghamshire.