Residents living close to a mine shaft from the 1800s have been told that there is no need for concern.

Around 35 people attended a meeting at the Washington Central Hotel, chaired by Workington MP Mark Jenkinson.

Tim Marples, head of public safety and subsidence at the Coal Authority, reassured residents that steps had been taken to secure the site and outlined what will happen over the next few months.

To safeguard residents he said the coal authority has “installed monitoring, injected resin foam right above the shaft to ensure no loose material can continue down from the initial collapse, spoken to residents, engaged with the stakeholders, done the historical trawl and then undertaken two phases of ground investigation to see if the geology on the ground matches the historical plans”.

He said it will be necessary to demolish seven houses that are in a collapse zone in Hunter Street, in order to create a permanent bridge space with platform and rig, drill down to the base and grout the shaft with cement then grout the sand and gravel and seal it together, then put a cap on top.

Three of the seven houses have already been purchased by the authority.

Future plans include completing the remaining house purchases by the end of April, tendering works for demolition to local contractors by May, seeking planning approval for demolition and to close the road by June, drilling and grouting and reinstating the site after consultation by August 2020.

Mr Murphy said it was not their policy to build on the top of the area after the shaft is filled in.

Possible future uses could be parking or public open space, but that will depend on what is found once the shaft is excavated.

He said: “Each phase will give us more information, but we will be open and transparent and discuss as we go. Mr Marples reassured residents that once the work has been done there will be no danger to other properties in the area. He said: “I have no concerns at all that anyone else has got any risk. Once the works are done then definitely no risk.”

“What I’d like to do is build some on either side, we’ve done that before, but I don’t know if it’s possible at this stage until we’ve undertaken the grouting works to do that. In an ideal world I’d love to put some back, but that will evolve once we’ve done some drilling.”

The authority was alerted to subsidence underneath a property in Hunter Street, Workington, by Allerdale Council.

After carrying out research, 1843 plans show that two of the houses are above a 180 metre shaft that was part of Hope Pit and one of them has subsidence.

Mr Marples said: “We’ve been doing this 30 years now and dealt with many shafts, our experience tells us that that collapse zone is where it is, we’ve glued that together, we’ve tested and done tests on that sand and gravel so it is robust, as long as we manage it carefully and we have been managing it carefully, that terrace and all of those terraces are really robust, built on good foundations so there is no immediate risk we believe of a collapse.

“What we do know is we have put our temporary measures in place and our monitoring so I am comfortable everything is good and then once we grout and seal then everything’s fine.

“There is no cause for concern, we’ve done what we’ve needed to do, grout the ground, put the monitoring on, spoken to the residents so that everything is under control, but long term we can’t leave it like that we really do need to treat it and to treat it the only way to do it properly is to drill down that shaft fill it full of grout all the way up and put a cap on top and also grout the sand and gravel and that is our plan this year, we need planning permission for demolition, permission to close the road to get access, but I can’t sit here and say there won’t be any impact on the residents because while we are working there will be but part of this meeting is to say why we have to do it and we will mitigate that impact as far as we can.”

The meeting, on Friday, was called and chaired by Mark Jenkinson, Workington MP. He said: “It has been managed very professionally by the Coal Authority and by residents. This has been going on for months and there has been no big push back or running to the press. It’s all been handled very professionally. People are free to contact my office if they need assistance and we can liaise with the Coal Authority.”

For more information residents can contact PS&S Support Team on 01623637429 or contact them on ps&sadmin@coal.gov.uk or to see details of a similar project in Wigan go to www.gov.uk/coalauthority.