St Albans residents have marked the birthday of a hole that opened up in a New Greens pavement last year - however, a question remains over who owns the pit.
The hole, situated near shops at High Oaks, appeared in April 2023 having previously housed a drainage cover, and its cause is unknown.
In an attempt to make the area safe, Hertfordshire County Council have placed a wheelie bin in the hole and erected plastic barriers around the location.
Resident Damian Gaskin said: “I reported it to the council and have tried to get them to deal with it, but they have just ignored us.
"They even cancelled the report ticket on the very day we first complained about it.
"Obviously this is no joke - it’s an eyesore, trip hazard and potential death trap.
"The council needs to let residents know when this is going to be fixed - replace whatever cover was taken with a permanent cover that is fit for purpose and do something about lorries parking on the pavement breaking these access covers."
The resident, who runs Saturday Pickers - a litter-picking group that has collected over 400 bags of rubbish in the New Greens area in the last year - added: "I’m fed up with this area being ignored - we have to go round picking up litter, cutting our own verges, planting our own flowers in council flower beds that should be cared for by the council but is left to become beds of litter and now it looks like we are expected to fill in our own holes."
Despite Mr Gaskin's complaints, Hertfordshire County Council say they do not know who owns the hole but have decided to repair the hole anyway and charge the owner at a later date.
A spokesperson for the local authority said: "We understand residents’ frustration with the length of time it has taken to fix this broken drainage cover.
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"Unfortunately we haven’t been able to identify who owns it, and therefore who is responsible for repairing it.
"It doesn’t appear to part of the county council’s drainage system, or belong to Thames Water.
"Barriers and a cover have been put in place to make it temporarily safe, but this isn’t a long term solution, so to avoid further delays we have decided to repair the cover ourselves and recharge the owner once we have identified who that is.”
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