A pipe was seen gushing with water for hours this morning just above a crumpled cliff road.

Water was spotted pouring from the pipe just before 9am above the closed Galley Hill Road in Swancombe as vans from Thames Water were parked at the entrance.

Greenhithe and Swancombe councillor Peter Harman said: “KCC has told me Thames Water were fixing a leaking stop cock.”

The major thoroughfare, which runs from Swansombe High Street to Ebbsfleet Footbal Club’s Kufflink Stadium in Northfleet, was been closed since a landslip led to a large chunk of the road and parts of the cliff tumbling onto businesses in Manor Way Industrial Park below.

The collapse of the road is thought to have been caused by a burst water pipe on Easter bank holiday Monday.

In the last five years the stretch of London Road in Greenhithe has suffered a record 50 leaks.

Cllr Harman has set up a petition calling for the faulty pipe beneath the road to be removed and new pipes but in below the chalk spine.

At a meeting earlier this week Toby Howe, from KCC Highways revealed four possible options to fix the road, including re-surfacing and reopening the existing road if the damage is not too severe, a single carriageway with traffic lights at either end, the building of a huge retaining wall to strengthen it the road or the creation of a bridge.

In March last year, just one month before the road collapse, KentOnline reported drivers and buses facing diversions for the second time in less than a week after Thames Water was forced to shut the stretch of road between McDonald's and Knockhall Chase for a number of hours due to leaks.

In August 2022 it was revealed the stretch of London Road between Swanscombe and Greenhithe had been the subject of 73 permits for various construction work in the last four-and-a-half years and there had been 18 water main repairs on the five-mile stretch of street.

People living in the surrounding area complained they regularly suffered with low water pressure as the old cast-iron pipes wee prone to bursting and they started petitioning for Thames Water to improve their service.