Fears gardens and walkways are collapsing near 300-home new build estate

Furious locals say their gardens and driveways are crumbling after building work began on a new property. Dozens of residents in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, were shocked when cracks appeared in their driveways.

Large chunks of people’s gardens on George Street also sank by up to 3 meters amid fears of a major landslide. The damage is believed to have been caused by strong vibrations from excavators doing foundation work on a new housing development nearby.

Construction has been temporarily halted as investigations are carried out into construction work which the developers are blaming on “heavy rain”. Resident Susan Tighe, 81, says a large area of ​​her lawn and driveway has sunk into the ground.

She said: “It started about two months ago, they are just doing the ground work at the moment. You can’t see anything and you can’t enter the site. We are above and the fields below. We think they took some of the land.

“We believe that the vibration of the machine is what caused the problems. The vibration of the cars shook the ground around the garden. I only saw a crack in the ground. It wouldn’t stop. It is a civil engineering work. If I don’t do anything about it, it will fall into the field.”

Linda Jackson, 74, who lives in the street with her husband Richard, 76, said: “Our concern is that they have dug up the bank and left a 15m drop from our garden, we are concerned that the same will happen. with us and our lawn will fall.

“It looks like they’re going to build a retaining wall, but no one has been here to tell us that. We pick up pieces here and there.

“Our garden could escape. That’s a significant drop. When I got down there, I couldn’t believe it. We were overlooking the field, but now we are overlooking a construction site.

“We don’t have a right to a vision, but we have a right to know what’s going on. What I would particularly like is some reassurance as to what is going on. We have lived here since they were built 50 years ago and nothing like this has ever happened before.

“Most of the people here are retired. We have landscaped our garden, so if it disappeared into the field it would be very upsetting. We have had a lot of rain but that hasn’t caused the problem so far.

“The noise and the dust are unbelievable. I can’t put white sheets outside because the air is full of dust. It’s just ‘bang bang’ all the time.”

People living near Norwood Close also reported damage to their homes. John Whitehead, 70, said: “We are very worried because they have dug 20ft into the bottom of our garden and we are extremely worried it could happen to us.

“The builders were digging last week and my wall clock was vibrating so I’m afraid it might have damaged my house.”

A spokesman for Ashberry Homes, which is part of Bellway, said: “Ashberry Homes was made aware that there was earth movement at the western boundary of the Sutton-in-Ashfield site over the weekend.

“Some of this movement has been identified as historical, while other parts have been identified as occurring more recently within the site boundary. We investigated the root cause of the problem and determined that the heavy rain over the weekend exacerbated the problem.

“We have now put temporary measures in place to restrict any further movement and planned works in the affected area will start imminently to provide a permanent containment structure along this boundary.

“We have had meetings with the contractors and the resident and are still investigating the cause of the problem and how best to fix it.”