It could cost up to £100,000 to repair a massive cavern that opened up in a field popular with dog walkers.

A sinkhole appeared in Sappers Field in Wooburn at the end of February 2020, prompting Wooburn and Bourne End Parish Council to fence off the area and shut the field for safety reasons.

A survey of the huge void in June found that it was a staggering 46 metres deep – and the field has had to stay closed ever since.

Progress is being made towards fixing it, according to Wooburn and Bourne End Parish Council – but it will cost tens of thousands of pounds.

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During a full parish council meeting on Tuesday, January 26, it was revealed that Buckinghamshire Council is taking temporary ownership of the field to get the damage repaired.

A contract for filling in the huge hole is currently out to tender.

Wooburn and Bourne End Parish Council clerk Malcolm Silver said whichever company is chosen to carry out the work will make the field “useable” again.

Cllr Tim Bingham said it should be made clear to Bucks Council that they want the ownership returned to them once the work is completed in case they decide to keep it.

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Mr Silver said: “It is us that maintains it and looks after it. The council is going to get it fixed but it won’t be cheap.

“Residents have said they are prepared to contribute to the costs, and if we are prepared to contribute and Bucks is prepared to contribute, we are close to getting it secured.

“The original quotes were between £50,000 and £100,000.”

Cllr Nigel Dibbo asked if there was a risk that Bucks Council could decide to sell it to a housing developer, leaving them to pay for the repair instead.

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Mr Silver said Buckinghamshire Council assured them that would not happen.

According to a report by GeoTerra, who used laser scanners to assess what happened, the sinkhole collapse exposed a 10-metre void and below it, a 36-metre deep bell pit which had previously been used to excavate clay for the manufacturing of bricks on the site.

The first recorded reference to activity at Sappers Field was in 1847, with tile-making and brickwork operations thought to have been active on the site from the mid-19th century until at least 1925.

It was then used as a landfill site by the council in the 1960s before it was filled in by a group of retired royal engineers and turned into a recreational park in 1975.