TRANSPORT bosses say that St Peter's Way is safe after a “noticeable dip” appeared in the road — close to where engineers are working underneath.

Drivers yesterday experienced "a sudden drop" in the road in both directions next to the Farnworth Tunnel project site.

The change in road levels came about after Network Rail started tunnelling under the road and disturbed the ground beneath.

But rail chiefs last night said "every precaution" was being taken to avoid anything like the dramatic scenes witnessed in Manchester last month, when a huge sinkhole appeared in the busy Mancunian Way.

They said the drop in settlement level beneath the road was exactly as they expected.

Bolton Council carried out emergency resurfacing work yesterday to address the dipped levels in the road.

A spokesman for Network Rail said: “Because the tunnel is now in operation, as soon as tunnelling starts it can disturb the ground beneath the road.

“This means that the ground is a bit looser and it can take a while for it to settle and become more compact again.

“While we have been tunnelling, we have been very closely monitoring the ground to see how much settlement is happening — and it is currently exactly as we predicted in our risk assessment.”

He added: “We do have contingency plans in place in case of a worst case scenario, because safety is our absolute priority and at the end of the day we are tunnelling under a road.

"But everything is as we thought it would be.”

Lane closures are currently in place in St Peter's Way as the large boring machine — known as 'Fillie' — carries out tunnelling work beneath the road.

Last month, the major project ran into trouble as engineers ran into large swathes of sand, causing delays in the progress of the project.

Clair Beswick, from Smithills, who uses the route twice a day to get to and from work, said: "I noticed it on Sunday. It must have appeared over the weekend because it wasn't there on Friday.

"I was driving over it and there was a sudden drop. It was worrying at the time because you think what on earth will happen next?"

Fellow commuter Dave Fish, of Kearsley, said: "Having read the reports about the pockets of sand beneath the surface, it is a bit worrying when you regularly travel on that road.

"But if they say it is safe then we should take their word for it — it did give me that sinking feeling though."

Transport chief Cllr David Chadwick confirmed that council workers had resurfaced the area where the dip has occurred.

He said: “You have got a big machine drilling under the road and then filling in the segments to fill the void left behind.

“When you do this kind of work you do expect some kind of settlement and Network Rail are monitoring every movement very carefully.

“You can’t give 100 per cent guarantees about what could happen but every possible safety precaution is being carried out.”