Misery as Telford couple left to face sewerage hell
An elderly couple have been left with a hole full of raw sewage outside their back door for almost a week.
Severn Trent dug the hole in the garden in Telford last Wednesday to access a collapsed waste pipe, and did not return to carry on with the work until yesterday.
With the hole directly outside the back door of their house in Webb Crescent, Dawley, Josie and Michael McGinty had to live with the stench over the whole bank holiday weekend.
It also meant Mrs McGinty, who is 79 and lives with dementia, and her 77-year-old husband, were unable to access their garden.
Mrs McGinty's son Louis Pinter said: "Severn Trent came out and dug down about a metre to the pipe. They have taken the slabs up on the patio to get to it.
"The pipe is collapsed, there is a gap of about half a metre between the two pieces.
"Sewage is mounting up in the hole until it gets to the pipe. There are six houses that feed into that pipe so you can imagine the smell.
"The hole is about a metre from the door. They have put yellow barriers around it so they can't get into the garden, which can only be accessed through the house."
Mr Pinter said the situation had caused a great deal of distress to the family.
Severn Trent has apologised for the delay in completing the work. It is not yet known how long it will be until the problem is fixed and the hole can be filled.
A spokesperson said on Tuesday: “Our teams started work to repair a collapsed sewer pipe at the customers’ property, but found that a full CCTV check of the pipe was needed before work could continue, which our teams will be doing today.
“We’re really sorry about this, and can fully understand how much of an inconvenience this has been, but we want to assure the customers it will be our absolute priority to get everything back to normal, and the pipe fixed as quickly as possible.”
