Something very similar happened in Epsom High Street in, I think, the early 1960's and on that occasion the "sinkhole" which swallowed a double-decker bus was a collapsed Victorian sewer. It glued up the traffic hopelessly for umpteen months before the hole was repaired and, I assume, they re-built that part of the sewer.
There is a whole series of articles in the Chelsea S. S. Newsletters in the 1970's and 80's about the sinkholes in the chalk near, I think, Bury St. Edmunds - a whole new estate of houses had been built above an area of Dene Holes and the soakaways taking the rainwater opened them up. Pretty sure there is a separate publication on this event.