Residents in a Kent village were disgusted to find raw sewage running down their road.

A murky brown liquid containing human faeces emerged from around a foul drainage cover in Water Lane, Bearsted, near Maidstone and began streaming downhill towards Roundwell, the main road through the village.

Cllr Val Springett (Con), who lives nearby, was the first to spot the leak when she was walking her dogs at 7.30am on Friday.

She said: "There wasn't much too solid coming out – the gap wasn't large enough – but it smelt really terrible and was an obvious health hazard."

She called Southern Water, and met their engineer on site a few hours later, only to be told that the section of the sewerage system where the problem had occurred had been installed by Dandara, the developers of the nearby 100-home Sycamores estate.

The system has not been adopted by Southern Water so it remains the responsibility of Dandara.

Geoff French is a resident in Water Lane. He said: "This is the third time raw sewage has overflowed into Water Lane from the drainage system constructed to serve the Dandara development.

"It continued all day and the next day, Saturday, until about 10pm, when workmen in two unmarked vans arrived to fix the issue."

The sewage prompted the Bearsted and Thurnham Society to issue a warning to its members over the weekend to stay away from the area over fears of a potential health risk.

Cllr Springett also contacted the Environment Agency over fears the sewage would find its way into the Lilk Stream which in turn feeds into the River Len, possibly contaminating the waterways.

Mr French, who has lived in Water Lane for 20 years, said the road was always prone to having water course down its steep hill in periods of heavy rain – hence its name – because of run-off from the fields farther up.

But he claims the issue with sewage only started when Dandara began building their 100-home development a couple of years ago.

Although vehicle access to the Sycamores estate is off Barty Lane, from Roundwell, the sewerage system for the development comes down a sharp bank on the north-western edge of the plot and into a channel under Water Lane.

Cllr Springett said: "I understand the manhole is quite shallow, and the pipe looks quite narrow to take the effluent from 100 homes. I'm no expert but perhaps it just doesn't have sufficient capacity."

Mr French, who is himself a land and engineering surveyor, said: "I'm afraid to say this won't be the last time this happens."

He said: "I don't believe the sewerage system they built was fit-for-purpose.

"Somebody really needs to be held to account."

Cllr Springett said: "There is no footpath in Water Lane, which means that pedestrians and cyclists had to wade through this, which is obviously unacceptable.

"The important thing is that this issue is resolved so that it doesn't happen again."

It is understood that Dandara is in negotiations to have the sewerage system adopted by the Icosa Water company, a provider established to offer new development residents with water and sewerage services.

A spokesman from Dandara said: "We were made aware of a sewage leak on Monday morning. A ground-worker subsequently went to investigate but found the blockage had already been attended to, so we unfortunately were unable to determine what caused the blockage in this case.

“It was checked again this morning (Tuesday) by our construction manager who has confirmed there were no further issues.

“To offer complete transparency, there is one minor issue that we are working to fix related to one manhole, but this would absolutely not have impacted on the running of the system or resulted in any blockages. We are working with the resident on this separate matter to resolve this minor issue as soon as we can.

“To provide some reassurance to residents and to assist with this matter, we will be running a CCTV survey of the sewerage system here next week – and we will share the results with First Port (the estate's property management company) to pass on to the residents.

"We understand how unpleasant this must have been and sincerely apologise to our residents for this.

"However we are doing everything we can and we are confident that this will not be an ongoing issue.”