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Christmas lights covered in sewage as drain floods

BBC A house with a pathway through a large front garden covered with Christmas decorations and signs saying "Santa, stop here". Christmas lights are strewn across the front of the house.BBC
The neighbours had only just put their Christmas lights and decorations in their gardens when a drain overflowed

Residents of a Surrey village saw their gardens submerged in sewage and dirty toilet paper after heavy rain during Storm Bert caused drains to overflow.

The neighbours from, Alfold, near Cranleigh, told BBC Radio Surrey they had just put up their Christmas lights outside their homes when the spill happened on Wednesday.

Alfold Parish Council said 17 homes in the area had been badly affected by stormy weather last week.

Thames Water apologised and said it planned to re-line its pipes to stop groundwater from entering the sewers.

Catherine Urben, who has children aged one and two, said she had come downstairs in the morning and saw her property in Clappers Meadow had flooded with sewage up to her front door.

She said: "We put the Christmas tree up two days before all of this happened - not a good start."

She said flooding also happened in March.

Catherine Urben stood in her back garden, with children's toys in the background
Catherine Urben had to wait until the following day for help to clean up the sewage from her garden
Catherine Urben Catherine Urben's flooded garden, with pieces of dirty toilet paper and sewage water coming from the drainCatherine Urben
The drain in Catherine Urben's garden overflowed on Wednesday after heavy rain

Ms Urben said she phoned Thames Water for help on Wednesday, but was left waiting until the following afternoon.

"Luckily it drained by 6pm but I was just left with chunks of dirty toilet paper all over my property," she said.

"We're just getting fed up of it now."

Her neighbour Alisha Russell said flooding happened "any time we have heavy rain".

But on Wednesday morning, her husband found "the whole front garden submerged in sewage".

"All of our Christmas lights were under water. It's awful," she said.

Catherine Urben dirty toilet paper and sludge in the grass next to patio slabs in gardenCatherine Urben
Dirty toilet paper was left in the gardens after the sewage water eventually drained away

In a statement, Thames Water apologised and said heavy rainfall from Storm Bert had "caused our sewer system to overload, resulting in diluted wastewater to escape from manholes".

"We have made plans to re-line our pipes located behind Clappers Orchard, to prevent groundwater from infiltrating the sewers", it said.

The firm added that it would inspect the amount of surface water from a private pumping station in the village, and the wider network to "understand the mechanisms of flooding in this area".

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