Sinkhole expected to keep Shoppenhangers Road closed for ‘several more weeks’ at least

A complex operation to fix a large sinkhole in Shoppenhangers Road will last several more weeks at least.

The void appeared following a sewer collapse on Tuesday, January 7, and a stretch of the road has been closed off to traffic ever since.

Since the emergence of the sinkhole, which forced Desborough College to close for three days in January, work has been extended beyond the initial six-week timeframe to investigate the cause of two new collapses.

“We came out to an initial scene where we had a huge hole open in the bus lane that leads down to the station,” said Stephen Sanderson, area network manager for Thames Water.

“We made the site safe and diverted the sewer.”

But the next morning Stephen and his colleagues were presented with another great hole which had opened in the road.

“We had to make these voids safe to continue work,” said Stephen.

When I asked what caused the problem, Stephen and other workers said they have been unable to determine the origins of the collapse.

“For the initial stages we had to hand dig down to four metres to avoid damaging any of the utilities and causing more disruption to the community,” Stephen explained.

This caused serious delays to the original timeframe as workers were unable to use a digger and the two other voids meant at least 70 metres of new sewer pipes needed to be installed.

Now this phase has been completed, the workers are making their way up the hill to the site where the two new holes have opened.

During the repairs, Stephen and his team have come up against an unlikely culprit which has caused more delays to their work – something known as ‘rag’.

Otherwise called ‘unflushables’, rag refers to items such as wet wipes being thrown down the toilet and causing harmful and in some cases catastrophic damage to sewers.

“The amount of wet wipes which are currently passing down this section of sewer have resulted in the workforce ceasing work,” Stephen said.

Due to the four-metre deep pipes becoming increasingly heavy with rag build-up, the team have had to lift the pipes out to remove the baby wipes and other unflushables.

“We’ve also had a mop come through which was slightly unexpected,” Stephen added.

Examining a blockage of rag – which consists of wet wipes, crisp packets and a pair of rubber gloves – Stephen explained that toilet paper disintegrates in the pipes in seconds but tissues and wet wipes cannot be broken down, as he urged everyone to be more considerate about what they flush down the toilet.

Talking about the future of the work, Stephen said: “We’ll do some ground penetrating radar before we open the road to ensure we have got no more concerns of future collapses in the area. I’d like to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you, we’ll try and keep you up to date and we’ll get this work finished.”