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The sinkhole that has opened up beneath a driveway of a home in Wednesbury, in the West Midlands
The sinkhole that has opened up beneath the driveway of a home in Wednesbury, in the West Midlands. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
The sinkhole that has opened up beneath the driveway of a home in Wednesbury, in the West Midlands. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Home evacuated after sinkhole appears in West Midlands driveway

This article is more than 6 years old

Three-metre wide and 3.65m deep depression in Wednesbury is in area honeycombed by old mine workings

A three-metre (10ft) wide sinkhole has opened up beneath a driveway at a house in the West Midlands, and appears to be growing.

What began as a small depression underneath the front tyre of the homeowner’s car in Wednesbury, near Walsall, is now 3.65 metres deep.

Since Sunday, it has consumed part of the front wall, garden slabs and a good part of the drive itself, leaving the car now teetering on the brink.

On the advice of the local Sandwell Council, the owner has moved out of the property at Churchfields Road and is now staying with her daughter, according to neighbours, while investigations take place into its cause.

One explanation could be the old mine workings that dot this corner of the West Midlands.

Glenys Murphy, a neighbour, said: “The mines mean that everything around here is like a honeycomb.

“They got a sinkhole up at the church.

“Personally, I’m not worried, because I know they built my house on the coal dump.”

“It’s going to take some filling,” she added.

Another neighbour said there had always been sinkholes in the area, with one swallowing a tree in the same street some decades ago.

The depression has become something of a local tourist attraction, with drivers pulling up to take photographs.

An elderly couple who live in the next road described it as “worrying”.

The Coal Authority was informed about the hole on Monday and has begun monitoring and an investigation.

The council has put up barriers to secure the site.

But as the opening is on private land, dealing with the hole will be a matter for the homeowner and their insurers.

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