Bicester family 'distressed' after sewage water swamps house

Peter Ward, a surveyor, who lives in the idyllic village of Hethe with his wife and 12-year-old son was left shocked when sewage started flooding his home at 9.30pm on July 4.

Mr Ward’s home is only 100 yards from a sewage pumping station but after 10 years living in the house, this was the first time such an incident has taken place.
Sewage on the floor in Mr Ward's house (Image: Peter Ward)

When a ball became stuck in the pump assembly, sewage started gushing out of the family’s ground floor toilet in the evening.

Mr Ward said the smell became unbearable and many of their possessions were ruined beyond repair.

Mr Ward said: “It was a very distressing experience.

“The raw sewage was gushing out at such a fast rate, that our ground floor quickly became flooded with brown and dirty water.”

Mr Ward said his dog Tottie kept running through the sewage and was loving it but this only meant he had to keep washing it.

Sewage water on the floor (Image: Peter Ward)

The sewage flooded the house thick and fast for 10 minutes and Mr Ward managed to only get through to Anglian Water at 10.30pm.

The water company offered to pay for the family to sleep in a hotel overnight due to the stench of faeces.

Mr Ward said finding an available hotel was difficult due to the timing of the incident and every hotel he phoned was booked up due to the F1 Grand Prix taking place at Silverstone.

He said: “We were forced to stay in the house overnight.

“We could smell the sewage throughout the night.

“It was like poison.”

Anglian Water sent workers to disinfect the house at 5pm the next day (July 5) and it then smelt of disinfectant for four days.

Mr Ward sent Anglian Water an email asking for £5,000 of compensation for the “distress, inconvenience, suffering and damage to our possessions that came into contact with the sewage."

Floor flooded with sewage water (Image: Peter Ward)

On July 18, Mr Ward was sent an email which denied any liability for the damage which the sewage deluge inflicted.

In an email seen by the Bicester Advertiser, Mr Ward was told: “We understand your allegations are that your property has suffered waste water flooding due to the pumps at the local pumping station failing and that caused sewage to back up and enter your property.

“Our investigation confirms that the pumps at the nearby pumping station were indeed interrupted and stopped working.

“The cause of this failure, however, is due to a ball becoming stuck in the pump assembly which prevented it from functioning correctly.”

Mr Ward was told the water company was unable to “control discharges of inappropriate materials into the sewer” and could not have foreseen the eventuality of the ball becoming stuck.

The request for £5,000 compensation for ruined possessions has come to nothing and Mr Ward said he will suffer in the long term by paying higher insurance costs.

He added: “My housing insurance company came out quickly and I was immediately told my premium was going to go up.

“I’m going to pay the price for something which was not in my control.”

Mr Ward is worried his house could be swamped with sewage again.

He said: “I’ve been given no guarantees it won’t happen again.

“Our house was the first line of defence and took the brunt of it.

“If the pressure was any worse, the sewage would have filled our neighbours’ houses.”

An Anglian Water spokesperson said: “We take all reports of flooding extremely seriously and do sympathise with the customer who has been affected.

"In this case, upon investigation it was found that the sewer flooding had been caused by a third-party blockage rather than a failure of our network and therefore are not responsible.

"As a gesture of goodwill, we offered to provide alternate accommodation the night it was reported to us and our cleaning contractor, Dryright, carried out a clean-up.

"We continue to urge the customer to contact their home insurance company to discuss any compensation enquiry related to the flooding.”