Building skip sinks into Belgravia road during work on £5m home

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One of the most desirable streets in west London was left looking like a "bomb site" after a skip fell through the road during a basement excavation.

Residents in Chester Row in Belgravia, where homes sell for more than £5 million, told today of their anger and said it could take "many months" to repair the huge hole in the street.

The skip, which contained soil from sub-basement excavations intended to almost double the size of the house to make room for a cinema and gym, fell through the street into a storage vault in the early hours of Saturday.

Residents today told how they woke up and saw a "fountain" of water coming from the huge hole in the ground after water pipes burst.

The property, which is being developed by Finchatton, was sold for £2.9 million last year. It is near the homes of Margaret Thatcher and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich. The developer today claimed that the road gave way because of a water leak.

A spokesman said: "We believe that there was a water leak which caused the substructure to give way. Fortunately no one has been harmed and the damage has been contained."

The conversion was being carried out by the Big Basement Company, which declined to comment.

Neighbour David Littlewood, who called the police, said: "All around were Big Basement Company people in a state of panic, removing all their signs. That seemed to be their priority. I could see a huge hole under the skip and it was listing badly. There were three fractures to the water main and water pouring into neighbouring houses."

Near neighbour Denis Jackson said: "This entire fiasco represents a massive collective failure for all involved in designing, approving and attempting to build overly ambitious, vulgar additions to listed buildings in a conservation area.

"How much misery do residents have to endure before we learn to properly balance long-term interests against reckless pursuit of short-term profit?"

Ali Hue-Williams, a doctor and mother-of-three, lives next door.

She said: "Everyone in the street objected to the basement. It has caused so much grief. I'm waking up every night at 4am, panicked. We should be given alternative accommodation. I can hardly farm my children out every night to stay somewhere else."

One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: "We are utterly furious. This road is one of the nicest in Belgravia and it looks like a bomb site. There was a fountain of water spewing out of the hole. It could take months to fix."

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