Southern Water customer in Sway, Darrell Elford, refuses to pay bill while sewage backs up from drain into his garden

A SOUTHERN Water customer in Sway is refusing to pay a £2,000 wastewater bill until the firm fixes a problem that has seen sewage overflowing from a drain at his property for years.

Bathroom fitter Darrell Elford, who lives in Centenary Close, now has bailiffs visiting his home after the company took him to court last year for non-payment.

Born and raised in Brockenhurst, 52-year-old Darrell says he is standing up to the company and refusing to pay until the problem is sorted out. It regularly leaves his back garden deluged in sewer water and unusable.

“This has been going on for nine years,” he told the A&T. “I regularly have sewage backing up out of the drain and flooding the whole garden, normally when we get heavy rain.

“Sometimes there’s tissue and visible waste in there, and it doesn’t have to be a significant amount of rain to kick it off, but I shouldn’t have sewage coming into my garden at all.

“It also backs up through the drain outside of my home where the washing machine drains and it all flows down to a river at the rear of the properties in the street.”

Darrell says he has reported the problem to Southern Water “dozens of times” over the years, but engineers and contractors who visit his property have told him there is nothing they can do.

“Southern Water sent a contractor round at the end of last week,” Darrell continued. “He just jet washed the area where the water overflowed, investigated the drain for a bit and called Southern Water.

“Then he told me, ‘There’s basically nothing we can do’, and I have to put up with it.

“A couple of days later I had a call asking how my customer experience was, so I said it was not very good.

“At the end of the day my garden is still contaminated with human faeces. My son has had his first daughter recently but she can’t come round and be in the garden because it’s contaminated.

“For the first few years this problem was happening I would dig up contaminated stones and artificial grass from my back garden and take it to the tip.

“It cost me more than £2,000 to replace all that, but in the end it’s still not a solution so now I just don’t do anything with my garden because there’s no point – it will just flood with sewer water eventually.”

Darrell said he first refused to pay his wastewater bill between 2018 and 2019 in protest at the service he received from Southern Water, although he later relented and paid the bill.

But he is now refusing to pay his 2023 bill, saying: “I’ve told them I’m not paying until you find a way to fix this problem.

“They’re really not giving me a service. I’m not not paying the bill to be bloody-minded, I just want some action.

“They took me to court last year. I owe them just over £2,000, and I’m still not paying it, even now they’ve started sending debt collectors.”

Southern Water’s head of customer service Ashley Marshman said: “We’re very sorry to hear about the impact flooding has had on this customer over several years.

“During and after heavy rainfall, sewers in this area can become overloaded when surface water floods into them – made worse by the presence of illegally connected private pipes into our network, a build-up of groundwater and blockages caused by items which should never be flushed down toilets or poured down sinks.

“Our teams are investigating and tracking down the problems one by one, to help inform what improvements will help fix these issues moving forward.

“We’re also working to help support this customer to make sure he gets any support he is entitled to after experiencing these incidents through our guaranteed standards of service.”

A Southern Water spokesperson told the A&T they have not sued Darrell for damages, only for his outstanding wastewater bill, and that he has been paying his water services bill to Bournemouth Water.

They also said that at no point during the 2018/19 and 2023 court proceedings against Darrell did he respond with reasons for his non-payment.

The spokesperson said the company is aware of pressure on the local sewer network in Sway, stating that “hydraulic overload” is usually caused by “huge jumps” in surface water entering the sewers.

They also stated that customers who experience external flooding are entitled to a 50% refund on wastewater charges.