A resident says raw sewage spills across his driveway every time there is heavy rainfall.

The waste then runs from the domestic drain outside Mick Goodrich’s home in Old Tovil Road,Maidstone, across the pavement and into the street.

“You can see everything,“ said Mr Goodrich, who has lived there for five years. “I can practically tell what my neighbours have been eating.

His home is on the end of a terrace of six buildings. It is a combined system, with both foul drainage and rainwater run-off going into the same pipework.

But on Mr Goodrich’s drive, there is a drain cover over a bend where the waste from all the houses is expected to make a 90-degree change of direction.

He said: “In a big downpour, the force of the waste is too much, lifting the cover and spilling sewage over my drive and which then runs across the pavement into the road.

The 68-year-old builder moved into the house in 2019 but after making contact with Southern Water to complain, he discovered that similar problems had been reported back in 2015.

He said: “I give Southern Water their due. Whenever it has happened, they’ve always come out and cleared up the mess really quickly. But they haven’t solved the problem.

Mr Goodrich said he had several visits from Southern Water engineers, who had even carried out a camera survey inside the pipes to check they were clear.

He said: “I’ve placed a heavy 30kg concrete ornament of a dog on the drain cover to try to hold it down, but even that doesn’t always work.

“These houses were built in 1912.

“I’m not saying its global warming but we do seem to be getting more very heavy downpours these days and the system simply isn’t man enough to cope with the volume of water.”

A spokesman for Southern Water said: “To rectify the man-hole spill, our teams have carried out surveys of Mr Goodrich’s property and of the properties around him, to see if there were any surface water pipes connected to the foul-only sewer network.

“We have identified a number of roof water pipes that were connected to the foul line and have installed a number of slow-release water butts at the other properties, to help mitigate the problem.

“This has resulted in a significant reduction of spills at the man-hole. We are ready and willing to install the slow-release water butts at Mr Goddard’s property to help with this problem, as soon as he gives his consent.”

The firm said that about 40% of the water in the company’s sewers comes from rainwater running off roofs, this causes the sewer to become overwhelmed during heavy downpours.

A slow-drain water butt has a thin flexible tube installed halfway up which allows the top half of water to slowly drain into the network over five hours, leaving 100-litres empty for the next time it rains.

But Mr Goodrich said that a water butt would not solve his problem.

He said: “The downpipe from my guttering comes into the system around the side of my house, below this drain.

“It is not my rainwater that is causing the problem, it is the water from my neighbours’ houses on the same run.”

He suggested the answer might be to install a double-sealed drain cover, bolted down to prevent further lifting.