So I was driving home from London at 0700h this morning, and missed/overshot my exit on the Motorway, and had to get off at Hook; it’s a good thing I did because otherwise I might have driven into this “hole in the road drama” !!!

Quoth:

Village road collapses

THERE has been a hole-in-the-road drama in a north Hampshire village this weekend.

Yesterday afternoon, a large hole opened up in the High Street, in Hartley Wintney, outside the Lamb Hotel.

A road maintenance crew attempted to fill in the initial hole but the surface caved in further and caused a larger, three-foot-deep hole to appear.

Thankfully, no-one was hurt, but the drama meant the road had to be closed off for the rest of the day and today. Engineers were unsure what time the road would be re-opened tomorrow.

Philip Bishop, landlord of the Lamb Hotel, was the first to discover the hole in the road and reported it to the Highways Agency. He placed bollards on the road to try to warn drivers.

Mr Bishop said: “There was an indent the size of a big table. A team then came to fill it in but it just collapsed.”
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This morning, traffic tailed back out of the village as drivers sought ways around the road closure.

Supervisor Bill Lavan, of Cappagh contracting company, said that the recent heavy rain could have led to the road collapse.

Hartley Wintney villager Julie Russell was shocked to find the hole in the middle of the road when she popped down to the shops.

She said: “I am just a bit surprised really. Considering people drive over it on a regular basis, it was lucky nobody was over it at the time.”