2 weeks Ago
A picturesque village stream has been left covered in sewage after a pumping station failed. The waste entered a tributary of the River Tas in Stoke Holy Cross close to Stoke Mill - a Michelin-awarded restaurant - after a nearby Anglian Water facility malfunctioned. This sent effluent flowing out of a manhole cover but engineers say they managed to prevent any sewage from entering the main river directly.
Waste was left in a stream connected to the River Tas following the incident (Image: Jim Webber) Tankers were at the scene attempting to remove the sewage with pumps from Monday last week but had left by Friday. However, Jim Webber, a Liberal Democrat South Norfolk councillor, has complained that engineers have failed to clean up properly. Jim Webber, a Liberal Democrat South Norfolk councillor (Image: Liberal Democrats) He said sewage was left sitting in the stream close to Stoke Mill restaurant - in the mill where Colman's mustard was first produced - several days later, fearing this could eventually flow into the Tas.
A tanker was used to pump the sewage out from the stream linked to the River Tas (Image: Jim Webber) He said: "The state it has been left in is disgraceful. I thought it was all under control but it does not seem to be." A spokeswoman for Anglian Water said testing had confirmed there had been no environmental impact to the Tas so far.
Waste left in a stream in Stoke Holy Cross after the pumping station malfunctioned (Image: Jim Webber) She said: "Our teams responded promptly to an issue at our pumping station earlier this week in the local area, which had caused a manhole to overflow. "The pumps were reset and are now working, and as a precautionary measure, we have placed sandbags to prevent any flows heading into the River Tas and tankered the area to mitigate any impact to the local environment. "We're currently investigating the situation to understand what caused the issue.
" Stoke Mill restaurant in Stoke Holy Cross (Image: Sonya Duncan) Special monitors have been installed at the manhole so engineers can be alerted and quickly respond if levels rise in the sewer again. But Mr Webber has been left unimpressed by the clean-up effort. "There was clearly still lots of sewage left there," he said, adding that that the tanker workers pumping out the waste complained they were finding it difficult.
"It probably needed more direct manual maintenance," he said..
