An elderly woman who has had to endure her Totternhoe garden filling with raw sewage for the last five years has threatened to end her own life, her son has revealed.
Worried Nick Cummings, 50, said his mother Connie, 80, “wakes up in the morning and wants to end it all” due to the human waste that fills her Castle Hill Road garden after every heavy rainfall.
Artist Nick, who lives in Scotland but travels down to look after his recently-widowed mother, is furious that Anglian Water has not provided a permanent solution.
He said: “She’s in floods of tears and I have to deal with this. I’ve been on to the environmental agency and the council. She shouldn’t have to live here, she should be rehoused.”
“She’ll never be able to sell the house, that’s impossible.
“Bringing chocolates and bunches of flowers is not the answer. Enough is enough, I want to go for the jugular.”
Connie said: “It’s been hell. I love my garden. It’s horrendous, I don’t know another word for it. I just want to run away.”
The village recreation ground, next to Castle Hill Road, is currently closed as it is waterlogged with sewage.
Mr Manning said that he was originally told by Anglian Water that nothing could be done until the water subsides.
But he said on Monday: “As soon as I got the press involved, lo and behold, within an hour, the people come out and start pumping the sewage away.”
A spokesman for Anglian Water said: “Unfortunately, a neighbouring landowner has made it very difficult for us to carry out this work, or to reintroduce the previous temporary fix, by denying us access to his land and holding up the process of approval for the permanent solution.
“We will use every legal power available to us to get this work completed as soon as possible, and will keep a temporary pumping solution in place until the permanent scheme is completed.
“We are currently in the process of carrying out a complete clean-up of the area, too.”