RAW SEWAGE has been making life a misery for people on one Carterton estate.

Residents of Hill View woke up three weeks ago to find their car park was flooded with foul-smelling effluent, containing excrement, sanitary towels and condoms.

And despite repeated visits from Thames Water, the problem has yet to be fixed.

The company believes it is caused by a collapsed sewer pipe four metres underground, and has promised to try to fix it this week.

Rachel Swatton, 27, said: “One Friday in late March we all woke up to a big pool of sewage in the car park.

“Since then we have been having raw sewage coming out of our drainage.

“That has got to be a health hazard, surely, with the amount of things that come up – faeces, sanitary towels, condoms.

“Thames Water have sent their contractors out to the area several times to do a clean-up, but it has been very basic, and I am not satisfied.”

The following Tuesday Thames Water engineers installed a pump to redirect the sewage coming from the pipe and stop the car park flooding.

But, according to Ms Swatton, they left a pool of sewage in the car park, only spraying it with disinfectant.

Following a call from the Oxford Mail, Thames Water sent its contractor out and cleaned up the pool of sewage.

Thames Water spokesman Natalie Slater said: “We are really sorry for the mess that has been caused by this flooding.

“We suspect there is a collapse on the sewer pipe and while we investigate further, have redirected the flows to prevent any further mess.

“We have asked our contractors to get a clean-up done as soon as possible and we are sorry for the time this has taken.”

Their contractor cleaned up the worst of the flooding on March 28, but the pipe remained broken.

Ms Slater added: “We’re really sorry for the inconvenience being caused by a collapsed sewer in Hill View.

“Our engineers are continuing to pump away the sewage to prevent flooding while we get this repaired.

“Due to the depth of the sewer pipe four metres below ground, this is a complicated task but we are hoping to have it completed within the next week.”

However, Ms Swatton says she is still not happy and added: “I am going to continue to pursue Thames Water in cleaning and repairing the damage it has caused.

“This began three weeks ago, and I still have no guarantee this won’t happen again.”