Giant hole appears in Barkway

A TWO-FOOT deep pothole labelled the Barkway Cave appeared in Crow country last week, with emergency excavation work now needed to fix it.

Barkway Parish Council chairman Bob Davidson came across the hole on the village’s High Street on Sunday morning at 9.30am, and noticed an underground gas pipe was exposed.

Herts Highways were called soon after, but no one showed up until 7pm when National Grid workers came to confirm there was no gas leak.

Cllr Davidson said: “I was out walking on Sunday morning and someone asked me if I had seen the hole.

“I walked down the High Street with Cllr Tony Terry and spotted a two-foot deep gaping cave - the Barkway cave.

“It’s right in front of a resident’s drive, who now needs to be guided out of her home in case her wheel gets stuck down it.”

Cllr Davidson expressed his concern for the main road through Barkway, and said Herts Highways should give more attention to its condition.

“As a village we are incredibly concerned about the B136 in Barkway,” he said. “It was never constructed to take heavy weight vehicles and we have tried through our parish plan to get traffic calming measures brought in.”

“We have been told we are not going to get these but because heavy goods vehicles go through here so often they are desperately needed.

“Drivers use Barkway as a shortcut between the M11 and the A10 in order to avoid Royston.

“Now with holes like this appearing, we are hoping more notice is taken.”

Herts County Council have temporarily covered the hole, and have confirmed that emergency excavation work is due to start by Monday.

A statement released on Tuesday said: “We were notified at 6.30pm and by 8pm had put a temporary cover over the hole. This is a situation where we need to investigate the cause of the hole appearing, not just fill it in, so we have made an emergency order to carry out proper excavation work within the next five days.”