A FAMILY have said they are afraid to go to sleep tonight after a gaping sink hole opened in the pavement beneath the shop next door to their home and they were told the whole building could collapse.

Melissa Alden, 52, who lives in Jericho, was woken up at 9am today by a police officer banging on her door and telling her that her house needed to be evacuated immediately.

A member of public had called the police after seeing a massive hole had opened in the pavement beneath the Frog Orange Party shop next door on the corner of Walton Street and St Bernard’s Road.

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Business owner Becky Lee-Allen closed the shop just last Saturday after the coronavirus pandemic decimated her income and she was unable to negotiate a lower lease with the building’s owner, St John’s College.

However Mrs Alden, who has lived in her house next door in St Bernard’s Road for 35 years, said she had thought for a long time that the building was in need of repairs, which she said the college, as the owner, should have paid for.

Oxford Mail:

This morning after the police evacuated Mrs Alden and her partner and son, they shut St Bernard’s Road temporarily, then put up bright orange barriers around the shop.

They also then filled Mrs Alden in on what they could work out about the situation, and what would happen next.

She told the Oxford Mail: “They think it’s going to come down.

“He said ‘we think it may fall down – there is a possibility’, then he said ‘I don’t think it will take any of yours down, I think it will take the frontage down first.”

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Despite the slender reassurance, Mrs Alden said she was terrified that the shop, which is connected to her house, could collapse at any moment, pulling some of her property with it.

Oxford Mail:

She also pointed out vertical cracks all over the front of the building indicating serious problems with the structural integrity.

She said: “It’s a nightmare.

“I am scared to go to bed tonight because we are attached.”

Mrs Alden, who has lived in Jericho all her life, said the emergency services brought a structural engineer onto the site this morning who put several timber supports in place in the basement of the shop, visible through the hole in the pavement.

However after that, no one told her what was happening next.

She said: “Nobody told us nothing – the police and fire just left.” 

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City councillor for Jericho Susanna Pressel this afternoon called Mrs Alden and a fellow councillor to see what the authority could do to help, but she also called on St John’s College to make the situation right.

She commented: “What a dreadful thing to happen, thank goodness no-one was injured. 

“I believe there have been structural problems with the building for some years, now people who live nearby are worried that their properties might also be affected.

"Let’s hope the college will act fast to make sure they are safe and to fix the problem.”