Raw sewage spotted spilling onto Evesham town centre path

The inspection chamber on the High was seen overflowing with sewage on Saturday (February 28).

Evesham town councillor Emma Nishigaki said: "I was told that there was raw sewage coming out of the inspection chamber outside Subway on the High Street.

"I went down there, and it was full of used tampons and chunks of poo right in the street.

"I contacted Severn Trent and, to their credit, they came out quickly and cleared it."

This is not the first time that sewage has been spotted spilling through access points on the street.

"This has happened in various locations in the town before, like at the top of Bridge Street.

"It's all very well building on brownfield land, but you need to invest in infrastructure.

"I'm not a nimby, but just around the corner, they have built loads of housing, but there is never investment into Evesham's Victorian sewers."

605 minutes of sewage discharges were measured at the combined sewage overflows around Evesham on Friday (February 27) and Saturday (February 28), according to sewage discharge tracker Sewagemap.

Meanwhile, two combined sewage overflows into tributaries of the River Avon upstream have been discharging sewage for a combined 837 hours, or 34 days.

Cllr Nishigaki said: "I think that it is the shame of the country that this is happening.

"I travel a lot, and the Caribbean infrastructure gets battered by storms, but I feel safer drinking water in the Caribbean than in the UK."

A spokesperson for Severn Trent said: "Our teams were called to investigate a leak from a manhole, caused by a blockage in our sewer network. The blockage was cleared, and the issue was resolved quickly.

"The cause of the blockage is unclear at this stage, but it can be caused by fats, oils and greases (FOG) being poured down drains or wet wipes being flushed down toilets.

"We would urge everyone to safely bin any FOG and only ever flush the 3Ps – pee, poo and toilet paper."