FAMILIES forced to endure roads running with raw sewage are battling repair plans that would shut the village's main street for six months.

Residents in Sutton Courtenay were outraged to hear their "creaking" pipe system, which they believe is struggling to cope with new developments in the village, would only be rectified by digging up their High Street and leaving it shut for half a year.

Developers Redrow, Pye and Linden – all of which have built clusters of homes in the village in recent years – presented villagers with the plan in a leaflet last week, detailing proposals to bury a sewage storage tank beneath the main road.

Villager and former Royal Navy engineer David Knowles, who was ankle-deep in pungent puddles in February after a manhole overflowed, said: "Everyone thinks it is potty.

"We are pleased that some sort of a solution is being offered for the overloaded sewage system but the plan has gone a bit off the rails.

"There has always been concern about the capacity of sewage – more plans for homes have gone through and the system is generally creaking.

"The idea they have come up with, the slow releasing of sewage from the storage tank, makes a lot of sense, but absolutely not in the middle of the highway."

Recent developments in the village include 19 homes built by Linden, 24 by Pye and 64 by Redrow Homes, all of which were allowed under the condition they would upgrade the foul waste system.

After lengthy discussions with Thames Water, which has advised on the plan but will not be implementing it itself, the trio hosted a consultation with villagers last week, who were told the road closure could be enforced this autumn.

Mr Knowles, 75, added: "I got a bit incredulous. The six-month closure of a public highway is going to cause enormous disruption. There must be somewhere else."

Deepak Patel, who runs Burgery Stores and the Post Office in the High Street, worried that the works would be detrimental to business.

He said: "We are a small retailer and we give the community a service. It shouldn't be taking that much time. We will lose passing trade."

Villager Callum MacKenzie branded it a "botched solution" that would spark a "desperate situation".

He said: "We tried to work through alternative ideas to stop the village being completely cut off but it seems all efforts have fallen on deaf ears."

Becky Trotman, spokeswoman for Thames Water, said: "The holding tank will form part of our sewer network so needs to be where the sewer is."