Little Lever: Concern after ground suddenly opens up

A hole suddenly appeared on Hereford Crescent, Little Lever  due to a suspected ‘collapsed drain.’

Residents of the street say that the hole, which was around 1-2 feet deep, opened up on Wednesday afternoon. As of late that afternoon, highways engineers were en route to ‘make it safe.’

Ward councillor Sean Hornby said: “It’s appeared today. I spoke with Malcolm Fairhurst, the head of highways at Bolton Council.

The hole (Image: Newsquest)

“He has said they are sending someone down to deal with it. They suspect that it is a collapsed drain, as the cover is right next to it.

“The council are going to go down and make it safe, then I imagine United Utilities would get on board and take care of it.

“Within five minutes of it being online, we were getting it sorted.”

One resident of the street said: “I did go out at about 9.30am and it wasn’t there.”

Council workers were reportedly heading down to make it safe (Image: Newsquest)

She added that there hadn’t been any occurrences like it “while I’ve lived here.”

She continued: “It’s a bit dangerous because we’ve got children, a cat and a dog. It’s concerning with that there, if you had a little child run away from you, they would be down it.”

Another resident said: “I left here at 1pm and it wasn’t there then. Then I came home at around 2.30pm and saw it.”

Hereford Crescent, Little Lever (Image: Newsquest)

The resident said that one of their fellow residents on the street was a United Utilities engineer, and that they sprayed markings and put cones down to make people aware of the hole.

On being asked if they were concerned about it, one resident said: “Yes, we do have kids who play on here.”