65ft sinkhole opens up in Surrey high street

A 65ft sinkhole has opened up in the high street of a Surrey village.

Residents from 30 properties in the village of Godstone have been ordered to evacuate their homes after the hole appeared on Monday night.

Surrey Police said on Tuesday that Godstone High Street had been closed between Oxted Road and Bletchingley Road following reports of a sinkhole opening in the area the previous evening.

Pictures show a home situated near to the 65ft hole, which has swallowed a large section of the road and part of at least one garden.

One evacuated resident claimed the “massive amount of traffic” and lorries driving through the village could have played a role in the collapse.

On Wednesday morning, a second opening appeared next to a parked car, metres away from the first sinkhole.

Surrey county council has since declared a major incident and urged residents to avoid the area, which is cordoned off, while repairs are carried out.

Noosh Miri, who was told to leave the area, said it sounded like “a waterfall” as she left her home, adding that the sinkhole was “right in front of my doorstep”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The police were telling us we needed to get out straight away because the sinkhole was going to get bigger and bigger.”

She said that within 10 minutes, her family had grabbed as much as they could in “utter panic”.

“We had no idea what was going to happen next,” she added.

“It was [like] definitely nothing I have ever experienced in real life – it was really, really scary.”

Speculating on what may have caused the sinkhole, Ms Miri said the village had been built on old caves.

“But it’s also a place that gets a massive amount of traffic with heavy, loaded vehicles,” she added.

“And where there aren’t speed cameras, you do often get the rattles in the house as they’re driving through that particular part of the high street,” she continued.

“That is the theory everybody has got, a mixture of different things happening at once.”

She said her family had been granted temporary accommodation but had been told the sinkhole was still “active” and could potentially become even bigger.

The resident said she and her family had “prepared ourselves” for at least a couple of months away from their home.

A spokesman for Surrey Highways advised that people avoid the area.

Carl Bussey, the Surrey county council assistant director for safer communities and chairman of the strategic co-ordination group for the incident, said: “Investigations are continuing to make the area safe and to repair utilities, and we ask that people remain away from the vicinity while that important work is ongoing. We will keep people updated as the situation develops.”