Solution sought to sinking historic Chester city centre street

Oct 13 2011 by David Holmes, Chester Chronicle

HIGHWAY engineers are trying to find out why St Werburgh Street in Chester is sinking.

A solution to the subsidence must be found before any work can go ahead on the proposed cathedral square scheme.

Bore holes were drilled by a specialist geo-technical team last week with the test results awaited.

Cheshire West and Chester Council engineers believe the area is occupied by a back-filled quarry from which sandstone was cut to carry out repairs to the cathedral hundreds of years ago.

Tests have already shown the in-fill has a depth of 20 metres above the solid bedrock.

But council engineer Sue Begley says there is no danger of a sudden collapse even though the road is used by heavy lorries.

She said: “One of the options, if the cathedral quarter goes ahead, is to do nothing, or top up with tarmac or put in a reinforced concrete slab. It’s all about what it is cost-effective to do.”

The council says the problem has been visible for the last 10 years.

But shopkeepers claim it was the emergence of a gap above a support pillar outside the shops in St Werburgh Street which triggered alarm bells recently.

They say Welsh Water were called in to repair a leaking sewer under the area but engineers found a more fundamental issue with ground stability.

Joseph Ansloos, owner of the New Bond Street London leather goods shop, said: “It’s got to be sorted out and the disruption has been minimal, to be fair.”

Archaeologists made some interesting finds on taking up the opportunity to probe what lay beneath the dip in the road over the summer.

Artefacts, including the base of a 16th century French dish featuring a face, indicate the area being investigated pre-dates the Civil War period.