A64 collapses as road swallowed by big sinkhole
Rillington residents left ‘shocked’ by damage
Motorists faced delays and diversions this week after a huge sinkhole appeared in the A64, causing a large section of the road to collapse.
Officials said a burst water main caused the huge depression to appear in the middle of the road on Sunday July 31, which forced North Yorkshire Police to close the A64 outside The Coach and Horses pub in Rillington after the road started “sinking”.
Yorkshire Water told The Scarborough News that the final repair works are underway with crews on site. A spokesperson said that the resurfacing will take longer than the average street, due to the busy nature of the carriageway, and that work “is ahead of schedule”.
A spokesperson for National Highways said that resurfacing work began at 12.30pm yesterday as well as levelling off the road and cleaning up the remainder of sand and mud.
“Once completed and cool, further work will be undertaken including road markings. The current diversion routes are operating with no noticeable delays,” they added.
Repair work earlier this week included excavating and backfilling the hole, building up the road base and fixing nearby footpaths.
A National Highways spokesperson said: “[Repair workers] need to ensure that they do not put plant over the pipe to plane off too soon, to prevent the pipe refracturing if weight is placed above before the site is ready.”
As The Scarborough News went to press yesterday, both Yorkshire Water and National Highways said in an updated statement that the A64 was expected to reopen from 6am today (Thursday).
The road was closed between Malton and Scarborough with traffic diversions in place between Old Malton and Willerby.
Janet Sanderson, North Yorkshire County Councillor for Thornton Dale and Wolds division, which includes Rillington, said she was “shocked to see the extent of the damage” and that the disruption “will be a major inconvenience to residents and communities”.
Meanwhile, residents in Rillington have spoken of their shock and frustration after the large sinkhole emerged.
Chris Dale, a Rillington resident, said: “It was unbelievable. When you first saw it, it just sunk down about 18 inches. You wouldn’t want to hit it with a car!”
Annabelle Fall, a shop assistant at Rillington Village Stores, said: “It’s proven to be a bit chaotic really. They’ve diverted all traffic down High Street and people park down here. People are quite worried because of the big artic lorries coming down here, and the Coastliner bus.
“There’s a lot of children who live on the estate where the traffic is being diverted and their parents just aren’t letting them out because it’s too dangerous with cars whizzing round far too fast.”
Cllr Sanderson said she had received reports of speeding cars and frustrated drivers trying to make up for delays, and urged residents to report incidents to North Yorkshire Police.