A view of the home in Buckinghamshire, after a 30-foot-deep sinkhole opened up in a driveway and swallowed a family car. Photo: PA WireA Buckinghamshire family yesterday described their shock at realising a 30ft-deep sinkhole had opened up in the driveway and swallowed their car – but also their relief that nobody was hurt.
Liz and Phil Conran’s teenage daughter discovered the 15-foot-wide crater at the family home in Main Road, Walter’s Ash, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, early yesterday morning.
Ms Conran said her daughter, 19-year-old Zoe Smith, went into hysterics upon discovering her prized Volkswagen Lupo had disappeared into the ground.
Explaining what happened Mrs Conran said: “My daughter went to go and let her horses out because she was going off somewhere for the day and she had to drive up there, and she got herself all ready, got to the door, and saw her car wasn’t there.
“She thought that was a bit weird, of course it was still fairly dark outside, so she went round to the kitchen window and then she saw the crater and just started screaming.
“We had no idea whether the car was actually in the hole or not, we couldn’t get close enough to have a look right down to the bottom, it’s about 30 feet deep.
“The car is on its side, its full of soil and she certainly, we don’t think, would have got out of it had she been in it, had she driven in and it had happened.”
Ms Conran, 51, said the relief that nothing had happened to her daughter was the overwhelming emotion, while the rest was “just an annoyance”.
However Zoe, a sales assistant, was “absolutely gutted” because she had been so proud of her car, Ms Conran said.
She said the family, including her 59-year-old husband Phil who worksas an environmental consultant, were stunned at the size of the crater that had appeared in the driveway of their home, where they have lived for the past nine-and-a-half years.
We’re wondering what else is going on in the area
“The actual size of it is what I think has taken us most by surprise,” she said.
“It’s just swallowed the car whole. The car has managed to rotate and turn, it’s on its side but its also facing the opposite way from where it was parked.
“So just the sheer size of it, and obviously what could have happened, and of course we’re wondering what else is going on in the area.”
The family stayed with neighbours after being advised to stay away from the house and are waiting for an insurance company representative to assess whether they can remain in the house.
Paul Beetham, a lecturer in civil engineering at Nottingham Trent University, said: “High Wycombe is a chalk area, and chalk has properties quite different to other types of rock. Areas underlain by chalk may contain natural voids or caves which formed over many thousands of years as groundwater passed through and dissolved the chalk.