Town centre street reopens after sinkhole is fixed

A main road through Lynn town centre has reopened today as work to repair a sinkhole has been completed.

Part of King Street collapsed on Saturday, which was taped off by police to alert motorists to it.

The road was then shut off on Wednesday morning as Anglian Water crews attended the site and investigated the cause.

A spokesperson for the water company said that its staff carried out camera surveys on a sewer, but confirmed that there was nothing wrong with its asset.

The sinkhole was a highways issue, caused by a fractured Norfolk County Council-maintained surface water line, which over time had washed away material from under the carriageway into the combined foul system maintained by Anglian Water.

This created a void underground which the highways crews were not aware of, leading to failure of the carriageway surface and the sinkhole appearing.

Following Anglian Water’s investigation to confirm its combined system was still working efficiently, the county council then instructed its contractor Norse to repair the surface water line and reinstate the sub-base and carriageway surface.

After this repair work, King Street has now reopened.