A BELTON couple fear they will be forced to move out of the home they have lived in for the last 37 years due to filthy sewage leaking from their drains.

A BELTON couple fear they will be forced to move out of the home they have lived in for the last 37 years due to filthy sewage leaking from their drains.

Billy and Frances Steward said the garage, shed and driveway at their St John's Road home was flooded once a month by up to three inches of the stinking brown waste water, which often contains faeces.

Mrs Steward feared the sewage caused her to develop gastroenteritis following the last leak in August and she is to have tests at the James Paget University Hospital to determine the cause of her problems.

The drain on their driveway usually overflows when one of the pumps at an Anglian Water pumping station in St John's Road stops working, causing water to back up and overflow from the drains.

Retired farmer Mr Steward said Anglian Water engineers were generally quick to visit and clean up the sewage, using disinfectant to kill the germs, but this was not a long-term solution for the problem.

In August, the father-of-three was forced to dispose of cuddly toys and children's books kept in his garden shed for his grandchildren after they were irreparably damaged by the sewage water. A tumble dryer and fridge freezer kept in the shed were also affected.

“It is just the inconvenience and having the smell there - you have got to walk through the sewage to get to the front door. I can not prove it was the sewage that made me ill, but it seems a bit of a coincidence considering I became ill around the same time as the leak,” Mrs Steward said.

Anglian Water spokesman Sara Rowland said engineers were investigating the cause of the latest incident, but had not found a blockage in any of the pipes to the pumping station which would have caused the drains to overflow.

However, she said many of the problems arose when residents disposed of food and other objects down the toilet which blocked up the pipes.

“It is just unfortunate that it has happened twice in the same place for completely different reasons. They have not found a blockage linked to heavy rain,” she said.