Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse it just did. I have been told by Walsall Council that Severn Trent have had to suspend work on Lucknow Road to deal with a hole which has opened up at the junction of Wesley Road with Coltham Road.

This has meant that temporary traffic lights have had to be installed to enable repair work to start. Wesley Road is part of the diversion route which was put in place on Monday of this week to enable Severn Trent to replace two water mains in Lucknow Road.

Archive picture of Coltham Road manhole collapse 21 Dec 2014

This means that as from tomorrow the closure on Lucknow Road will be lifted. Temporary traffic lights will control the traffic through the section of Lucknow Road where Severn Trent have been working this week. That’s the section between Martin Drive and the Jolly Collier Public House.

We are told that the 28 and 41 Bus services will be back on their normal routes as of tomorrow whilst Severn Trent rebuild the collapsed chamber at the Wesley Road/Coltham Road junction. This work is expected to take around 7 to 10 days.

The hole which appeared earlier this afternoon is a repeat of the problem which occurred just before Christmas 2014. The Lib Dem Focus Team reported that they had noticed a depression around the manhole where the repair had been carried out previously a few months back whilst out delivering Focus. As a result of this Severn Trent carried out some works to strengthen around the manhole a few weeks later. Obviously the situation was worse than they thought.

Severn Trent plan to move the affected manhole and chamber into Coltham Road off the line of travel of the many HGVs which use the A462 in order to prevent a further reoccurrence.

Once Severn Trent have sorted the collapsed manhole problem they will return to complete the works in Lucknow Road. At least this gives us a breathing space to try to get National Express West Midlands (NXWM) to look for a shorter diversion of the 28 and 41 services and for the council and the Police to look at what can be done to stop some of the reckless driving that is taking place along rat runs through a number of residential roads.