Formby ‘sink hole’ causes traffic issues and road closure for over a month - when will it be fixed?

People have been left worried about the safety of a Sefton road after a large cordon appeared around a “sink hole.” The large hole has left part of Victoria Road in Formby completely closed off to traffic.

A local resident, Sue Powell, told said residents were concerned about the road’s continued closure and whether it was safe, calling the situation: “An absolute nonsense.”

She said: “The hole has been the same for at least four weeks with no sign of any work being done to fix it.

“Would be nice to know how long it is actually going to take to fix the hole at Freshfield Station and the reason why it is taking so long, why nobody is working on it and what the cause was.”

When Sefton Council were contacted about the hole, a spokesperson said investigation work was due to be carried out to identify the issue with the cause”suspected” to be an “issue with underground drainage.”

The council spokesperson also said that permission was required from Network Rail for work to commence because of how close the hole is to the railway line.

The spokesperson added: “Both United Utilities and Sefton Council have attempted to expedite the granting of permissions and it has taken some time for Network Rail to approve these works.

“As a result of this delay, a road closure must remain in place to ensure the safety of our road users.”

Now that approval has been given “exploratory works can now begin” according to the council, with the aim to “identify and ultimately fix the cause of the issue.”

The spokesperson said in order to facilitiate this “A short diversion is currently in place and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.”

A Network Rail spokesperson said it had responded “as quickly as possible” to help the council investigate the problem at the site.

The spokesperson said: “We are working closely with Sefton Council to help them investigate an issue on the road near to Freshfield station. Our engineers have responded as quickly as possible to ensure that any work carried out is done so safely.”