This is a village, not a city - so why can't you stop sewage flowing into our chalk stream?

But Anglian Water says there has been "no environmental impact" and the spills aren't its fault.

Mark Dye's cottage off Watery lane in Grimston, near King's Lynn, has springs bubbling up on its boundaries and a stream running through its grounds which runs into the Gaywood River.

Sewage bubbles up from a drain cover, running into Mark Dye's drive and the chalk stream (Image: Mark Dye)

While there are as yet unresolved issues with pollution in the river's lower reaches, Mr Dye saw young brown trout in the clear, gravel-bottomed streams around his property, along with freshwater shrimp and other wildlife.

During heavy rains two weeks ago, a drain cover near the property was lifted by water pressure, allowing raw sewage and sanitary items to flow across Mr Dye's drive into the stream.

Mr Dye, who works as a PR consultant, said the incident was the latest in a string of sewage spills.

Mark Dye points out the drain cover which lifts, allowing raw sewage to spill during heavy rain (Image: Chris Bishop)

"Raw sewage gets everywhere," he said. "We can't get out of the drive, we can't walk the dogs through it.

"The issue of untreated sewage pollution finding its way into the rare chalk stream at Grimston has been happening for years and to date no solution to prevent future episodes of this has been offered up.

"In the past nine months I have rather upsettingly had to call in seven separate incidents every time we have seen a decent amount of rainfall.

"Grimston is a village, not a city. Given the historical issues why can’t we approach this differently, find out where these illegal connections are and do something about them? What’s really needed is a proper strategic plan for the whole catchment."

Scum floats on the surface of the stream (Image: Chris Bishop)

Mr Dye says he has not seen trout in the stream since the latest spill. Here and there, the gravel bed has a coating of sludge, while there is a patch of scum against a bed of watercress.

Anglian Water said: “Our local team has visited Watery Lane several times, and on the last visit the Environment Agency also attended, confirming that there was no environmental impact to the river Gaywood after the recent heavy rainfall. We are committed to protecting the Gaywood, and that’s why we recently relined our sewer in Watery Lane to prevent groundwater ingress.

Part of the stream raw sewage flows into during heavy rain, which connects to the Gaywood River (Image: Chris Bishop)

“During this work we also identified infiltration into our network – unfortunately we don’t have any power to reduce infiltration on private pipe work which then connects to our sewer. When surface water drains into the foul system, this can overwhelm our networks and cause flooding."