Mat Pritchard fears his health could collapse at any moment, along with the 35-year-old building in the North Yorkshire city of Ripon where he and his wife, Jane, own a flat. They believe it is sitting on the edge of a sinkhole. Famed for its historic buildings — and a hornblower who has “set the watch” at 9pm every night for 1,100 years — Ripon is also known as the UK’s sinkhole capital, experiencing at least 30 collapses in the past 150 years, according to the Geological Society (GS). “The constant stress and worry have been unimaginable. It is taking a massive toll on us as a family,” says Pritchard, 52.
The perilous situation at Bedern Court, in the shadow of Ripon Cathedral, has been dragging on since 2008 when residents first noticed cracks appearing in their walls and contacted their insurance company, Aviva. Along with three other homes, Pritchard’s two-bedroom property was deemed unsafe for human habitation by a monitoring report in September 2020. Residents were evacuated and had to find alternative accommodation. Their homes cannot be lived in or sold, may be demolished and, until an insurance valuation is agreed, owners will receive no recompense. Pritchard’s 82-year-old father, who was living in the flat — which he bought in 2000 for £50,000 — had to move out to a rented terraced house.
It is no longer possible to enter the flat to inspect the internal cracks. The building has shifted to such an extent that the front door refuses to open. Instead, Clare Kinsman, 77, tears welling up, allows us into her two-bedroom ground-floor flat, from which she had three weeks’ notice to pack up and leave. It’s clear that it was once a neat and welcoming home, but the rooms feel sad and forlorn; huge gaping cracks scar the bathroom, hallway, bedrooms and living room. “I was lucky to find a two-bedroom flat to rent through a housing association, but it’s [my financial situation] very worrying,” she says.
There are believed to be about 32,000 sinkholes in the UK, according to the GS. It says that in February 2014, after the wettest winter in at least 248 years, there was a significant increase in the number of sinkholes across Britain, particularly in the southeast of England. The rise in global temperatures, which affects the ground, is also believed by scientists to contribute. Dr Vanessa Banks of the British Geological Survey says: “I don’t doubt that climate will be influencing this, but I can’t give you statistics — that science is still to be done.”
Aviva refuses to accept that the faults at Bedern Court derive from a sinkhole; they are therefore not covered by the terms of the building insurance policy. The dispute has led to at least ten independent geotechnical and construction reports. This, along with legal costs and repairs, has contributed to a shared cost of more than £68,000 to the 29 owners and leaseholders of Bedern Court Ltd (BCL), a non-profit management company.
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Several of the reports have affirmed that Bedern Court adjoins an underground sinkhole. The sinkhole led to the demolition about six years ago of a medieval wall and another modern block, St Margaret’s Court. However, Aviva does not acknowledge that this is the reason for Bedern Court’s problems.
“There is now a difference of opinion as to whether the distress results from settlement caused by the compression of soft ground that the block is built on — so this could have been a fault in the foundations by the builders, who went bankrupt years ago — or settlement caused by the development of a ‘dissolution feature’ in the bedrock,” says Pritchard, who as chairman of BCL has had to take months off from his work as a research project manager to focus on fighting the case.
The issue rests with Aviva, but Pritchard says that it has been complicated because Towergate, BCL’s insurance broker, has changed the insurance provider several times in the past 14 years. Aviva remained the insurer until October 2013. Subsequent insurers have been QBE Insurance Group to 2018, Ageas Insurance from 2018 to 2019 and Arch Insurance Company from 2019 to the present.
BCL wants Aviva to recognise that the problem is ground subsidence and therefore an insured risk; to be compensated for the loss of the block of flats; and wants the insurers to pay for the block to be demolished and the ground “made good” in an appropriate fashion. He also wants to be compensated for the costs of technical experts and lawyers; for affected shareholders to be compensated for loss of earnings caused by the subsidence; and to be compensated for the mental health implications of a process they describe as “long drawn out and entirely unnecessary”.
A spokesman for Aviva says: “We understand that this is a difficult situation for the residents of Bedern Court. Aviva provided property owners cover for Bedern Court between 2007 and 2013 and during this time we declined the claim based on independent expert assessments undertaken at the time. We remain actively involved in discussions with other current and past insurers to share information to support the ongoing investigations and to review any new information.”
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According to the GS, Ripon sits on a series of underground fissures formed by dissolved gypsum, a process known to lead to the formation of sinkholes. They can be triggered by a number of factors, including natural dissolution of the subsurface, infiltration of water from the surface washing down fine materials from the covering deposits, and fluctuations in groundwater levels.
“We already know that there was subsidence on that site [St Margaret’s Court] historically,” Pritchard says. “Geology does not respect the legal boundaries of property. The ground is moving and it looks to be moving faster than it has in the past. There has been alarming recent movement in cracks which had been moving much more slowly previously, according to a monitoring report we received in October. This report also concluded that ‘recent structural damage in Bedern Court is much more likely to result from settlement caused by a solution feature than settlement caused by the compression of soft ground’.” The ground has moved by up to 250mm since 2015, he adds.
It has had an effect on neighbouring properties. Homes in other blocks are proving difficult to sell even though they are not severely affected by obvious signs of subsidence. Alistair Kidd, obliged to sell his 94-year-old father’s £150,000 flat to pay for care home fees, has had three sales fall through in the past year. Two failed because potential buyers were turned down for mortgages after surveys, and one because the buyer pulled out when he heard that the adjoining building had been evacuated.
Ripon city council agreed at a meeting in early November to ask North Yorkshire county council to support and help to fund the urgent demolition of the evacuated building. “The movement of the affected block caused by sinkhole activity in the area is gaining speed and the implications for public safety are enormous,” the city council leader, Andrew Williams, told the meeting. “The potential impact of collapse and possibility of opening up of more damaging sinkholes in neighbouring areas cannot be ignored.”
BCL and Aviva remain in deadlock, the fate of the residents and their homes unclear. Meanwhile, Pritchard is kept awake at night by thoughts of the entire building collapsing. “It literally is a nightmare,” he says. “The building could go at any time.”
Recent sinkholes
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● In October a second sinkhole appeared on the A26 Tonbridge Road in Maidstone, Kent. Measuring about 5m by 6m, it is just 500m from where a huge void appeared in 2018.
● In April 2017 a three-year-old boy was rescued from a 2m hole that appeared suddenly on the beach at Orcombe Point in Exmouth, Devon.
● In May 2016 a sinkhole opened up on Woodland Terrace in Charlton, southeast London, swallowing a car. Chalk caverns and disused mineworkings lie underneath the residential area, where other sinkholes have appeared in recent years.
● After weeks of heavy rain in February 2014, a 9m-wide and 6m-deep sinkhole opened up in Oatridge Gardens, a cul-de-sac in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, forcing 17 homeowners to flee their properties.
