CONSTANT flooding in a residential close in Blackbird Leys has finally finished, bringing to an end almost two years of parking havoc.

Residents in Druce Way, which is off Sandy Lane, had become used to the sight of a vast puddle of standing water at one end of the road whenever it rained.

The issue was first reported to local councillor Linda Smith in January 2015, who passed it on to Oxford City Council.

She said: "I was knocking on doors talking to residents to see if they had concerns and one of the things they raised was the flooding in the road.

"They couldn't park their cars there and there's enough pressure on parking round that way anyway. A whole section of the road was taken out.

"They hadn't had any luck getting it fixed and I raised it with the council - and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing."

It reportedly took several months for council officers and representatives from Thames Water to establish who was responsible for fixing the problem.

Earlier this year engineers from Thames Water were sent to the site to investigate and it transpired there had been a major sewer collapse under the road.

Senior case officer Edward Smewing said: "When our Engineers started the excavation they found the sewer was in a worse condition than previously anticipated.

"We also found that a void had developed beneath the surface due to the collapse in the sewer.

"We therefore had to extend our dig, and replace the sewer right up to the manhole."

The void area was backfilled and left until the middle of September to settle, with the road finally re-tarmacked on Friday, September 23.

Ms Smith said: "I am pretty cross. It had been like that for such a long while.

"Residents have been told and people are just really glad it's finally been done."

Sewer collapses are usually caused by ground movement, heavy loads on the soft soil above or tree roots growing into joints and the water flowing out can gradually wash away the surrounding soil, undermining anything above it.

Druce Way faced flooding at the same time as much of Oxfordshire at the start of this year.

Firefighters were called to Kidlington in January and sandbags handed out after a collapsed sewer pipe in a nearby field overflowed from heavy rainfall.