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news
Sewage on Mirehouse, Whitehaven cycle path (Kairen Gearing, Facebook)Britain’s crappest cycle path? Water company slammed after “absolutely vile” sewage spill on popular bike path used by schoolchildren
We’ve seen our fair share of crap cycle paths over the years on road.cc, but one popular active travel route in Cumbria this week offered a startlingly literal interpretation of that unwanted descriptor, after schoolchildren were forced to trudge through raw sewage that had spilled onto the path following a blockage.
The sewage spill – described as “absolutely vile” and “unacceptable” by local residents and politicians – took place last week on the Valley Link off-road cycle path at Mirehouse, just south of Whitehaven, Cumbria.
Water company United Utilities says the stretch of cycle path affected by the sewage, and used by children walking and cycling to Valley Primary School, has now been cleared after concerns were raised by locals, and that the flooding onto and across the path had been caused by a sewer blockage.
However, one local politician claimed that this month’s foul-smelling incident was simply the latest in a long line of flooding-related issues on the cycle path, and called on the water company to sort out the problem “once and for all”.
(Credit: Kairen Gearing)
The issue was first reported last week on the local Mirehouse Matters Facebook group, where residents posted photos of the sewage covering the entire path. According to the group’s members, the sewage had been present on the path since last Monday during a cold snap before melting later in the week, prompting many locals to report the matter (and the stench) to the council.
“It wasn’t too bad when it was frozen, but now it’s melted it reeks and people are trailing it into their houses and the kids are trailing it through Valley Primary where there are kids that get sick easily,” one group member said.
“And you can’t walk around it either because it’s covering the grass right up to the trees.”
> London's £4 billion 'Super Sewer' could disrupt east-west segregated cycle route
Speaking to Cumberland News, Mirehouse Matters’ moderator Carl Walmsley criticised the slow response from the council and water company in dealing with the rather repulsive cycle path barrier.
“I walked through it the other day, not realising what it was, and it’s absolutely vile,” he said.
“I know it’s been reported many times by concerned residents as they have put it on the Mirehouse Matters page. How it hasn’t been seen as a priority job is beyond me.
“It’s on a popular stretch of the cycle track used by residents of all ages and is on the Valley School route. The councillor for the area was informed and he says he is chasing it up. Hopefully, it will be resolved as soon as possible.”
Mike Hawkins, who represents Mirehouse on Cumberland Council, also told the local newspaper that “this is just the latest incident on that footpath going back many years with flooding”.
“It’s time United Utilities sorted out the problem once and for all. It’s unacceptable that children have to go through this,” he said.
> Council warned that removing key cycle lane would be “real PR risk” – but pressed ahead anyway
After clearing the path this week, a spokesperson for United Utilities said: “A team has carried out investigations into the sewer blockage, which caused flooding onto the footpath and found that everything was operating as normal.
“As an extra precaution they will be returning to carry out further CCTV checks along a length of the sewer to double check that the issue is resolved.
“These types of blockages are often caused by items like wet wipes, or fats, oil, and grease being poured or flushed as they get stuck in the pipes and don’t break down.
“We always remind people that only pee, poo, and paper can go down the loo and to dispose of cooled fat and oil from plates, roasting dishes, pans, and utensils into the bin.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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13 comments
Cumbria are showering themselves in ...something, this week.
This government has let them pollute our rivers and beaches, to save their mates among the water company investors and CEOs from having to forgo dividends and bonuses to build the necessary infrastructure, so I doubt they could give a flying fuck about a bike lane.
Agreed. And the most disgusting thing is we have to pay the water companies to let them do it.
And then pay them even more to fix it. At least the shareholders are happy.
That's right - water bills will 'have to' increase, so the water companies can afford to do the maintenance that we thought that we were paying them to do in the first place
Didn't they also take out big loans so that they could give the money to shareholders and now we'll end up paying for that too.
Indeed, and this should get much more attention than combined sewer overflows and storm discharge (as long as it is in accordance with their permits). Because to some extent this is inevitable as rainfall gets more intense, and has always occured even before privatisation. The consequence of the infrastructure for surface water and foul water being common, and was the nature of the assets they were given to manage at privatisation.
The only reason the systems are not capable of handling the amount of people and rain we have is under investment. There could, and should, be no more than a tiny handful of overflow incidents a year in the most torrential flooding conditions. The systems are so ridiculously under funded and under maintained that they overflow every single time it rains.
The reason for this is the water companies spending your money to give to their shareholders. This is not by accident, its by design, this is privatisation working as intended.
The biggest problem in the country is FPTP, it's clear that the majority of people want to live in a decent country, run by decent people. FPTP does not allow for this, PR would see tories consigned to the bin, for ever.
EDIT: It's abhorrent that a minority can, in effect, cheat their way to power. Where's the logic in allowing this?
Ever heard of tactical voting? Or even, just voting?
Try that and perhaps some lefties will get in and cripple the country and allow ourselves to be overrun by illegal immigrants (whose accommodation and food your taxes pay for btw)
Going by your username(s) I suppose you are just being deliberately provocative rather than ignorant. It does get a bit tedious after a while though.
Poor little racist...
Water companies in england and wales put sewage in the sea an average of more than 1000 times a day in 2022.
The debate shouldn't be whether or not they should be getting bonuses and dividends, it should be on how long their prison sentences should be.