Householders in Necton have been told they can help prevent sewage flooding by checking and changing surface-water drains.Anglian Water called on villagers to check piping from gutters and other surface-water pipes to ensure it is not going into foul sewers ill-equipped to cope with the extra water during heavy rain.

Householders in Necton have been told they can help prevent sewage flooding by checking and changing surface-water drains.

Anglian Water called on villagers to check piping from gutters and other surface-water pipes to ensure it is not going into foul sewers ill-equipped to cope with the extra water during heavy rain.

The sewerage system in Necton is only designed to take water from toilets, bathroom and kitchen wastewater, not surface water, and with increasing numbers of gutter pipes feeding into the foul sewage system, during heavy rain there have been sewage floods.

Spokesman for Anglian Water Sara Rowland said: 'There is a solution. If all the surface-water connections to the foul sewers were removed and rerouted to either surface-water sewers or to soakaways, Necton would not be so prone to sewage flooding whenever it rained.

'Anglian Water cannot make residents improve their surface- water drainage but we urge people to check and, if necessary, to change their surface-water drains for the benefit of the whole village.'

At a meeting earlier this month, Anglian Water pledged to investigate bigger sewers but said they could not guarantee it could be funded when a more viable solution exists which actually deals with the cause and not just the symptoms.

Ms Rowland added: 'Bigger sewers would provide additional storage during wet weather but would be slow flowing in dry weather.

'Sewers are designed to be self-cleaning but a slow-flowing sewer cannot do this, which could result in odours, particularly in the summer.

'We do not want to trade one problem for another,' she said.