Godstone
Godstone High Street reopens, 18 months after the sinkhole swallowed it
Godstone High Street is open again. The A25 through the village started carrying traffic on Friday 31 July, a year and a half after the ground gave way beneath it.
The collapse happened on 17 February 2025, when a crater opened in the middle of the High Street. Around thirty homes were evacuated, businesses were cut off, and one of the busiest roads in this corner of Surrey was shut with no reopening date to offer anyone.
What was underneath
The answer turned out to be Victorian. Ground investigations found historic sand-mining workings running beneath the road, and erosion of the pillars holding those old workings up is understood to have contributed to the collapse.
Filling them was the bulk of the job. Surrey County Council has put the repair at roughly 1,100 tonnes of grout, a large part of it drilled in through around 125 holes reaching up to fifteen metres down, to stabilise the tunnel network before the carriageway could be rebuilt on top of it.
The water mains
Three SES Water mains were caught up in the collapse. The company investigated whether its pipes had caused it and reported that they were found to be in very good condition, with the mining workings identified as the ground problem.
Damaged eight-inch and sixteen-inch mains were replaced, tested and brought back into service before the road could reopen.
Why it mattered well beyond Godstone
Because the A25 is a through route, the closure was never a Godstone-only problem. Drivers moving between Godstone, Bletchingley, Oxted, Caterham, Warlingham, Whyteleafe, Woldingham, Redhill, Purley and Croydon all had to find another way round for eighteen months, along with anyone heading for the M25, south London or Kent.
Godstone businesses carried the worst of it. Several spent the closure asking for further tax relief while the trade that normally passes their doors went somewhere else entirely.
Did the closure affect your journey?
If you changed your route for the past eighteen months, or you run a business on the High Street, we would like to hear how it went. Get in touch with Surrey Extra through Instagram.