RAW sewage spurted from a manhole and gushed across a main road for hours yesterday, leaving villagers to plod through puddles of foul waste.

A ball of flushed baby wipes blocked the sewage pipe in High Street, Sutton Courtenay, flooding the road with excrement and toilet paper.

David Knowles was childminding at his son’s house in the High Street’s ‘triangle’, next to the manhole.

The 75-year-old, who also lives in Sutton Courtenay, said: “There must have been about 10 gallons a second coming out – it was a big stream about 6ft wide.”

His son Daniel and daughter-in-law Hannah Knowles live in the house with their children, Sasha, two, and five-year-old Charlie.

Daniel, 45, said: “All the school buses stop outside our house so all the children’s school shoes were getting covered.”

A neighbour, who declined to be named, said: “I was out early at 6am to walk the dog. It was all bubbling up through the drain at the end of the drive. It’s left scum on the ground which smells horrible.”

Fred Sparkes, who owns Halls garage in adjoining Brook Street, said: “I couldn’t breathe this morning with the smell, it was lethal. I had to turn customers away, it was just dripping off the cars.”

The culprit of the blockage was a ball of baby wipes, which was cleared by Thames Water engineers by 2pm.

Company spokeswoman Becky Trotman said: “ What we’ve seen in Sutton Courtenay is an example of how people’s lives are impacted when the wrong things are put down sinks and toilets instead of in the bin. Sometimes people don’t realise that wipes do not break down in the sewers.

“They stick to the insides of the pipes and build up until the sewage can’t flow past them any more and backs up through manholes or in the worst cases into homes.

“These types of blockages and the problems they cause are totally avoidable and our message is clear – bin it, don’t block it.”

Callum MacKenzie, who has lived in the village all his life, said the problem was made worse by nearby housing developments.

The 59-year-old said: “There has been huge development. The local community has been grumbling about the infrastructure of the drainage system.”

Robin Draper, another Sutton Courtenay resident, agreed, adding: “The sewage system is not adequate for the village with the three new developments.”

Recent developments in the village include The Cobblestones, 19 homes built by Linden, Pye’s Sutton Fields which is made up of 24 homes, and 64 homes in Asquith Park built by Redrow Homes.

Last summer, Vale of White Horse District Council launched an investigation into the Asquith Park development, to ensure it was complying with planning conditions over its sewerage system.