Disbelief as new sinkhole emerges in Coventry street

drains 'overflowing with human waste'



Another Coventry street has been hit with a sinkhole - as well as drains 'spilling over' with human waste. Steve Guest felt compelled to highlight the situation outside his home in Curtis Road, Wyken after seeing reports about the sinkhole that emerged in nearby Sewall Highway.

He told CoventryLive that their nightmare first started a month ago when Severn Trent carried out works to replace old lead pipes with plastic ones along the street. He says holes were dug while the works were carried out, and then the holes were re-filled and the road resurfaced when complete.

But he says one re-opened - first starting off small, then opening up into a sinkhole. "This hole appeared in the Tarmac, about the size of a cup, then it was the size of a dustbin lid, then everything collapsed in," he said.

That is outside his front drive, but while it has been fenced off, he claims it remains an open sewer with the pipe inside it open. And the situation has been made even worse, he says, as this is causing the drains in his back garden and at the front of his house to overflow.

"I am at the bottom of the street, at the bottom of the hill, so all of the waste from the street on my side runs down to the drain at the back and the drain at the front," he said.

"They are full to the brim." But he said the situation came to a horrible head at the weekend. On Sunday, both the drain in his back garden and one at the front of his home began overflowing with human waste.

"They overflowed on Sunday, I had all human waste and sanitary products all over my front garden and it ran down the neighbours' drive and into their back garden," he said.

"I have had people (Severn Trent) come out to look at it and telling me what they are going to do, but no one has actually done it. So at the moment I have an open sewer at the front of my drive and two full drains, front and back, that are just on the verge of overflowing again."

Due to the coned off sinkhole, he cannot get a skip moved off his drive. "I am supposed to be landscaping the back garden, so that has come to a halt at the minute," he said.

"I have asked Severn Trent several times when they are going to come and fix the problem, but no one is willing to speak to me."

He said the smell is awful. "Sunday was the worst, with all the waste in my garden, that was not smelling too sweet at all." The resident, who has lived in the area for more than two decades, said that engineers have been out to look at the drains.

Yet he says they have not 'sucked out' the waste, instead using rods and jetwashing it. "Who knows, we could have another sink hole somewhere," he said.

Why the disbelief? These things happen. I think it's called life!