Stink as Telford driveways flooded with raw sewage

Two houses on The Avenue in Wrockwardine had their gardens flooded with sewage on Sunday, after a blockage in the pipe network further downstream.

Anthony Porter, one of the residents affected, had friends visiting when his garden began to flood.

He said: "Initially Severn Trent said that they couldn't get to me until 10pm on Monday.

"There were a few more phone calls and I eventually got a call saying someone would be with me in two hours. It continued to flood until they cleared the blockage, which was between 6pm and 7pm on Sunday."

One of Mr Porter's friends had to jump across the path, onto the now saturated lawn, and leave via his neighbour's garden.

Mr Porter said that Severn Trent had initially said that it was up to him to claim any damages on his own house insurance, but the blockage was not caused by him.

Three days later, his garden is still a mess, and he has had to dig out paths to his front and back doors and clean them as best he can with bleach.

However, since the Shropshire Star began making enquiries,it seems Severn Trent has made the clean-up of the sewage flood a priority.

Mr Porter added: "First a crew came and cleaned up the manhole cover with a jet wash. They jet-washed my neighbour's driveway, because that is all hard-standing, but they said they couldn't do any more for mine."

Later though another crew turned up and said that it was a priority according to their bosses.

Mr Porter has now taken two days off work to try to get the issue sorted.

He added: "It is really poor, at least a disinfectant would kill bacteria. And we all know how quickly it multiplies.

"I'm still really annoyed about it, I want be settled until they do something about it. We're coming up to Christmas, I want people round my house, but people won't come round if there's crap all over the drive. I still can't use my driveway fully."

A spokesperson from Severn Trent said: “We’d like to apologise to two customers on The Avenue in Telford who’ve experienced flooding in their gardens. We fully appreciate just how distressing any type of flooding can be, which is why we’ll be working closely with both of them to help return everything back to normal as quickly as possible.

“Our teams have been working in the area recently to clear a blockage on our waste network, quickly after it was reported to us.

"We’re pleased to say the blockage has now been removed, however, events like this can be easily prevented if people simply bin their wipes and sanitary products, instead of flushing them down the loo. The same advice applies to fats, oils and greases. We’d like to remind everyone to bin these too, rather than pouring them down the sink, so that we can keep the network running clear.”

It is understood that conversations between Severn Trent and the customers are still ongoing to clean up the mess to everyone's satisfaction.