North West water company United Utilities says it is not responsible for raw sewage in the River Mersey after a host of 'revolting' videos and images emerged over the weekend.
A number of videos and pictures have been shared in recent days which appear to show large amounts of raw sewage in the Mersey. One video, taken of waste in the water at Otterspool Promenade went viral, with thousands of shares.
That video was taken by Liverpool Councillor Steve Munby, who told the ECHO the scene in the water at Otterspool was 'one of the most revolting things he had ever seen." He added: "There was clearly a lot of faeces in the water, it was vast. There cannot be any doubt that this was raw sewage - and lots of it, it was disgusting, clearly something has gone wrong."
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Across the country, water companies are under major pressure at present after around 100 beaches in England were hit by raw sewage discharges in what has become a national crisis. But United Utilities, which manages the north west's water services, insists it is not to blame. They instead blamed a third party for the discharges.
A spokesperson for the company said: “Over the weekend we have carried out thorough checks of all of our wastewater systems in the area and we are positive that there have not been any releases of sewage into the river. Our teams did find evidence that the pollution had been caused by a third party in the Otterspool area and we have reported this to the Environment Agency and Liverpool City Council’s Environmental Health department."
The Otterspool video was not the only report of sewage in the Mersey that came in over the weekend. Connor Gurney shared images of raw sewage in the river further up at Widnes, close to the Mersey Gateway Bridge. He told the ECHO: "There was an extraordinarily odd smell, and while I’m not 100% sure what it was - all I could describe it as is a pungent sweet yet sickly odour that was totally unavoidable — no matter how little you breathed in."
Connor initially shared the sewage-strewn image of the Mersey at Widnes on Sunday, but returned yesterday (Monday) to find a similarly grim scene in the river. At the other end of the region there were also reports of numerous piles of faeces appearing at Birkdale Beach over the weekend.
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