St Albans sinkhole security costs top £40k

More than £40,000 has been spent on round-the-clock security near the site of a sinkhole, a council has said.

The 33ft (10m) deep hole opened up on 1 October in St Albans.

Security was put in place straight afterwards, to monitor empty properties and power outages in Fontmell Close. The road remains closed and several homes are still empty.

St Albans District Council said it was hoping to recover some of the costs from the government.

About £10,000 per month has also been spent on a 4x4 shuttle service to transport residents to a temporary car park.

The shuttle service across muddy fields, covering a distance of 335 metres (1,099ft) each way, operates between 07:00 and 22:30 every day.

Rosemary Broom, who moved back into her house after 47 days in a hotel, praised the service and added "everyone is pulling together".

But Frank Kaloczi, 80, who is blind, said he can only leave the house if accompanied by his children.

He said: "It's not easy being blind, but being a prisoner in my home makes it even worse."

A council spokesman said it was in the early stages of contact with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) over recovering costs.

A DCLG spokesman said: "The council were given advice on how to apply for emergency funding and the circumstances where that might be granted. The council has not followed up on that."

It added local authorities have reserves to "pay for unexpected incidents" and expects them to "deal with a reasonable amount of emergency costs from their own resources".

Hertfordshire County Council, which is responsible for highways, said it hoped to build a temporary access road before Christmas and drill for possible voids identified in its earlier survey "soon".

A gravity survey of the road and footpaths for the council revealed a "significant anomaly" underneath some of the houses.

The council said it plans to follow this up with "inclined drilling" to "validate the results" of the survey.

A spokesman said progress was slow because the authority needed to make "the right decision" and not put "people's safety in jeopardy".