Burst water pipe causes road to collapse

MORE than 20 homes were left without water after a burst pipe caused part of a road to collapse.

A sinkhole appeared at the north end of Kidmore Road, Caversham Heights, at about 8am on Sunday, which came two months after reports of an underground leak.

Thames Water had said this proved to be a false alarm and blamed the burst pipe on “ground movement” which it says led to the hole in the road.

Part of the pavement and a grassy area was also damaged as the ground gave way next to where water was leaking from the broken pipe.

Engineers cordoned off the area with a blue fence as they excavated a 1m deep hole in the road to expose the broken pipe. The sinkhole is about 2m wide and 4m long. Pallets carrying hundreds of two-litre water bottles were delivered to the street while the repairs were carried out before supplies were restored via a temporary pipe on Tuesday.

The Pink 22 and School Bus 81, operated by Reading Buses, had to be diverted via Richmond Road and Shepherd’s Lane as four bus stops on the route had to be closed due to the sinkhole. Olga Zilberberg, of Kidmore Road, said she and six of her neighbours had reported a “constant” leak to Thames Water in November.

This, she said, created “hazardous” ice in the road during the recent wintry weather conditions in the last two weeks. Mrs Zilberberg, who has lived with husband David and two daughters in the road for more than 15 years, said: “Since it was first reported on November 5 there has been a constant leak on the road, that’s nine weeks until the pipe burst on Sunday.

“Coming out of my drive to take my children to school I had to go down the road at 5mph because the road was so icy that the car was slipping. The roads had been gritted but it wasn’t done very well.

“I heard on the radio that Thames Water came to Kidmore Road to attend to a blocked manhole, which they did, it was in my neighbour’s back yard. But that has nothing to do with the leak in the road, which was coming out somewhere near the gutter between mine and my neighbour’s property.”

Mrs Zilberberg said she had woken up at 8am on Sunday and found her water had been disrupted and then saw the pavement next to the collapsed road sink into the ground.

She said: “Thames Water was here at 6am. We didn’t see them then, only when we came out later to walk the dog and that’s when we saw the hole in the road.

“We were talking to the engineers and, at that point, the green and the pavement were still there and it was just the road that was sunk. We were talking to them and asking them what we should do and then suddenly we saw the green and the pavement cave in.

“It was a bit of an ordeal getting the car out of the drive, I was very scared, my car was just by the bush which is on the edge of the sinkhole.”

The pavement had collapsed into the ground right up to the bushes at the front of her property, which are now at the edge of the hole, in front of her driveway.

Ankush Malik has lived in Kidmore Road for three years with his wife, seven-year-old son and elderly mother. He lives two doors down from where a house had to be demolished in 2016 after a burst water pipe caused subsidence beneath the property.

Mr Malik said: “At least we have been provided with water bottles but bathrooms and kitchens have been disturbed, which is a big deal, especially because I have an elderly person and a kid in my home.

“Now our biggest concern is around the ground stability as subsidence can cause structural issues even in our properties. Mine is the third house from where the burst has happened and Thames Water said its technical team was going to be scanning the ground for instability. That is an even bigger worry and that is stressing us out.”

A spokeswoman for Thames Water said that engineers had inspected pipes in Kidmore Road in December following reports of a leak and that no leaks were found. She added: “We are sorry to those who have been impacted by a burst water main caused by movement in the ground which has left a hole in the road and damaged the pipe.

“Our teams have installed additional pipework which has returned water supply to all the affected properties, while we carry out repair work.”