An update on Wednesday 12th February: Hambledon Parish Council has had some positive news about the road closure. Surrey County Council believe they have fixed the issue causing the water to pour down the road. SCC’s drainage team have been on site today and cleared a root that had grown into and blocked a drain. Thames Water now has until Friday to backfill the hole and make the road passable.

The advice in the Bernard Cribbins comedy hit song The Hole in the Ground was: “Don’t dig there, dig it elsewhere”.

In Hambledon, as fed-up residents will know, the holes in its roads are no laughing matter. As for where they are being dug, it is not just “there” but “elsewhere” as well.

Hambledon Road at Rock Hill has been blocked since January 29, when Thames Water arrived to fix a recurring water leak. The hole is still there, the road remains impassable, and no one has been on site for a week.

Since then, there have been closures, for different reasons, on Church Lane and Hambledon Road at Hydestile. New Road approaching Witley Station is due to be closed for four days from next Monday, again by Thames Water. All this follows many other closures this winter, leaving villagers fed up and frustrated.

But it is the work (or lack of it) at Rock Hill that is causing the greatest anger. Villagers have been forced to take a long diversion, using the pot-hole riddled Culmer and Water Lanes, or via Milford. The closure has a direct impact on the Old Coal Yard businesses, nursery school and pub on one side of the closure and the church, village shop and hall and St Dominic’s School on the other. All remain open but the village is effectively divided in half.

Hambledon Parish Council has made repeated attempts to get up-to-date information from Thames Water, only to be met with equivocation at best and no response at worst. A sign on the roadworks gives a completion date of February 1^st, eleven days ago.

It is particularly galling that the road has already been dug up at the same location, with resulting disruption, in the recent past. Once again, the water leak has returned, and it can be seen gushing into the large hole that has been dug half way up Rock Hill and also from the verge higher up.

The parish council is only informed of planned road closures and the Rock Hill leak was an unscheduled emergency repair, although there is no evidence of any urgency.

In addition to attempting contact with Thames Water, the parish council has also been requesting information from Surrey County Council which, as the highways authority, has overall responsibility.

The parish council is grateful to its SCC Ward councillor Kevin Deanus who has established that Thames Water has an extended permit deadline to fix the problem, now given as February 14^th, and he is asking for an update. He has also passed on the parish council’s concern over the lack of information and poor communication

Robin McKeith, the parish councillor with responsibility for chasing-up highways issue, has expressed his frustration to Kevin and has asked why, if there are to be delays, could not the road be made passable until work can resume. In the meantime, Robin is posting any latest information on the village WhatsApp group.

• The Hole in the Ground song was a big hit for Bernard Cribbins in 1962 and has remained a favourite ever since, not least because it captured the public’s imagination. Noel Coward even included it in his Desert Island Discs selection.

Cribbins takes the part of the humble roadworker who is addressed by a pompous man in bowler hat who demands to know why the hole is being dug.

“Don’t dig there, dig it elsewhere.
You’re digging it round and it ought to be square.
The shape of it’s wrong, it’s much too long,
And you can’t put a hole where a hole don’t belong”.