Water firm ‘sorry’ over raw sewage (From York Press)

Yorkshire Water apologises to residents of Highthorn Road, Huntington, over raw sewage problem

9:35am Saturday 16th March 2013 in News By Richard Catton, richard.catton@thepress.co.uk

Highthorn Road residents Mike Rawding and Julie Richmond who are angry over sewage problems

RESIDENTS of a York street who spent the weekend trying to stop raw sewage backing up into their homes have received an apology from Yorkshire Water.

Furious householders in Highthorn Road, Huntington, said ten homes experienced raw sewage coming back up through toilets as underground drains struggled to cope with a blockage.

Resident Michelle Rawding said she had been “fobbed off” for two days by Yorkshire Water, while she and her neighbours were still unable to use their toilets on Tuesday.

“There are ten houses that are affected and we are praying there is no rain tonight,” she said.

Neighbour Julie Richmond, 45, said: “On a night, when people are bathing and showering, the whole street stinks.

“It used to be run by the council and you would ring and within an hour a great tanker would turn up to blast the blockage away.

“Now they have tendered it out to Yorkshire Water and you get a bloke with hosepipe turn up and all they do is put more water in to the drains.”

Mrs Richmond said Yorkshire Water had announced the blockage was cleared on Tuesday morning, residents were still experiencing problems later in the day.

A spokesman for Yorkshire Water said: “We’d like to apologise to those customers for the unacceptable situation they currently find themselves in. We believe the problem is down to a blockage in one of our local sewers, which we recently inherited. A team is currently on the ground working hard to remove the blockage and resolve this issue.

“In the meantime, we continue to liaise closely with those customers affected, and we hope to have the problem resolved as quickly as possible.”