Prompted by the discussion about the sinkhole in Manchester, with a suspected shaft under a B&Q etc, I remembered something that I spotted a while back.
The Stadium of Light in Sunderland and/or the adjacent Sunderland Aquatic Centre are atop some of the supposedly deepest shafts in the UK. I don't have the exact shaft coordinates, just estimating from old maps, and what I saw while the site was being cleared.
A small electricity substation in Crossford, Fife is atop a probably shallow air shaft. Could cause interesting problems if the transformer, on its small concrete base, disappeared down the shaft.
There seems to be, according to Google Earth, a bus workshop atop the shaft at the Carbrook part of Plean Colliery. There is a precast concrete works at the site of the main shafts but I am not sure exactly where they were so don't know if they have been actually built over. But not far away, there is a chipboard factory atop Bannockburn 1 & 2 shafts, and a cattle market perilously close to Polmaise 1 & 2 shafts, with the possibility of something nasty happening in the car park. Shaft fill does settle...
.
We have had sink holes local to me as of now (Hemel Hempstead) due to chalk mining which had long been forgotten. Also in Kincardine (Fife) where my parents used to live, both under roads but very close to housing. Two sites in the east of Edinburgh, where a couple of streets of council housing and (separate location) part of a new Barratt estate had to be demolished. There have been more, discussed on this forum in many cases.
Property transactions in specified mining areas need a Coal Board (or their successors) report,but that would have been of no use in these cases, or indeed probably Manchester, because it would only report coal workings, not limestone etc. But in at least the Edinburgh cases a perusal of old OS maps would have been enough to suspect problems.
There are lots of mine workings not in any official records. Stirling Council were, and probably still are, intent on creating a new housing estate at Durrieshill. Well, there may be no records of mining, but the old maps and a surface examination say otherwise, and fairly shallow.....
Limestone workings, as we all know because of the opportunities they provide us, tend to be very extensive and fairly shallow. Add in acidic rainwater, disintegrating timbers, possible pillar robbing, etc, and they provide ample opportunity for causing sinkholes.
It seems to me that the legal requirement for a proper mining report needs to be extended to cover all mining areas, not just those where coal was mined. I can see quite a lot of remunerative work for suitably qualified members of this forum, either researching mining records or in some cases carrying out physical inspections underground.
The daft thing is that the localities which need a coal mining report are just defined by the name of the town or village, not properly mapped. So when my late mother bought her flat in Menstrie she had to pay the fee for the mining report, even though the lawyer knew that there had been no mining, or any possibility of any, under the site. It was precisely on the Ochil Fault, which duly obliged by providing a very minor quake, as it does from time to time. But because of that fault, the coal basin was very shallow at the edge and the seams were thinned out to almost nothing, as well as being well cooked. The nearest mining was at least half a mile away.
What is under buildings in your area? Any more stadiums sitting atop deep shafts? Might be a good way of getting rid of football hooligans...