A HOME owner says he was left with sewage in his back garden for a week because the water board was too busy to clear it up.

Bernard Harris, of Firthmoor Avenue, Darlington, watched foul water from a flooded sewer pour into his garden during the bad weather last Tuesday.

And although he believes it is Northumbrian Water's responsibility to mount a clean-up operation, it has still not cleaned all the sewage away.

He said: "It is disgusting. I have sewage under my patio, under my gravel, and I emptied the water out of my pond and there was a thick layer on the bottom.

"I have spoken to Environmental Health officers and Northumbrian Water, who said they would come out and clean it up.

"Some contractors eventually came out, six days after it happened, but they just took my gravel away and didn't clean away the sewage under the gravel.

Northumbrian Water customer contact manager Lynne Allaker said that customers with sewage inside their homes had been given priority.

She said: "With the bad weather, we have been very busy, and we do have to prioritise some customers over others.

"Our clean-up is a goodwill gesture - there is no strict liability where cleaning up sewage from drains is concerned.

"We will be investigating where Mr Harris' sewage came from, whether it was his own private sewer or the public sewer, and see if we can take preventative measures to stop it happening again."