A ROAD has been closed after a burst water main caused a minibus to fall into a sinkhole.
Nine Mile Ride has been shut to traffic this morning and diversions have been set up to enable motorists to get around the borough.
And it’s not the only closure in place – heavy rain across the weekend has caused problems in Sanford Lane, Hurst which is currently shut. Yesterday, the drains on Molly Millars Lane couldn’t cope causing the road by Lidl to be flooded.
South East Water, which maintains the water pipes in the borough, said that a cast iron water main had burst just before 6am this morning at Nine Mile Ride.
As a result, some residents are reporting low water pressure today.
Thames Valley Police tweeted the news that a minibus had been caught in the hole, but said that no one was hurt.
Reading Buses are run a diversion for its Leopard 3b route and said that no stops are currently affected.
It is not yet known how long the repairs to Nine Mile Ride will take.
In a statement, Robert Anthony-Scorse, regional network manager at South East Water, said: “We are sorry to those customers who have been affected by the large burst on our water pipe network in the Crowthorne area which happened earlier this morning.
“Our team was initially called to a leak in Nine Mile Ride just after 5.45am. We experienced a burst on one of our 18in cast iron water mains.
“Due to the complexity of the burst, the road has been shut from Old Wokingham Road to New Wokingham Road while we repair the water main. Access to Pinewood Campus from Old Wokingham Road will still be maintained.
“There will be a diversion in place between Old Wokingham Road and New Wokingham Road via Dukes Ride.
“Our repair team is on site. We are currently isolating the burst and working to restore water supply as soon as possible. It is possible that around 50 properties may be without water while the repair is carried out. We will be working on the damaged pipe throughout the day.”
Disruptive
“We know how disruptive burst water mains can be and unfortunately they do happen on our network, which has 9,000 miles of underground pipeline transporting 517 million litres of water a day.
“There are also six million joints which have to withstand high pressure 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Inevitably sometimes these pipes and connections fail, but we work around the clock to repair them as quickly as possible. We continuously monitor our network, and between 2015 and 2020 we are investing more than £424 million to maintain and improve our infrastructure to ensure fresh tap water continues to flow to our 2.2 million customers.
“Our advice to customers is to visit out interactive In Your Area Map on the South East Water website where they can find updates as the repair progresses. If customers have an emergency they can call us on 0333 000 0365.
“They can also call 0333 000 0365 to be put on our priority services register.”
