A council says “lessons have been learned” after disturbing footage showed a waste truck dumping gallons of filthy water near a river.

A resident captured the video just after 7am on April 18 outside the Miller’s Arms in Pound Lane, Canterbury.

It shows a Canenco vehicle emptying gallons of brown-coloured liquid onto a road and verges near the River Stour.

Canterbury City Council, which owns and manages the waste company, insists the dumping was accidental.

Having filmed the incident for about 20 seconds, the camera operator described the water as smelling awful.

They added that there was no drain on the stretch of road, resulting in the brown fluid running downhill towards the nearby pub.

Spokesman for the council Robert Davis described the incident as “unfortunate and highly unusual”.

He explained: “We understand the concerns raised by residents about this issue and have looked into what happened.

“The driver had just finished cleaning a street and had collected a larger volume of water than usual on a wet day, and then went onto their break.

“The vehicle was parked on a road with a pronounced camber, and with the water moving over to one side as a result, regrettably it came out of the vehicle through the overflow pipe under pressure and the driver did not realise.

"The driver is upset this happened and lessons have been learned for the future.

"We can reassure people that we do have proper processes in place for emptying street cleaning vehicles and that the incident that was filmed is definitely not our standard practice."