A farmer claims he has been left in the lurch by Southern Water after a sewage spillage ran through his farmyard and “soaked and ruined” it.

Alan Dean, of Chilston Fish Farm in Grafty Green, near Maidstone, said the water company had failed to clean up his premises after the spill and had left him with 100 bales of rotting hay.

The 69-year-old said he had not even had an apology from Southern Water since their pumping station adjacent to his property failed during torrential rain on November 18.

Southern Water says it has apologised to the farm owner and is investigating the full circumstances.

Mr Dean told KentOnline: “When the pump failed, the pressure caused a manhole cover in my farmyard to lift up and untreated water or sewage to flow like a river straight into my hay barn, causing damage to the yard and ruining the hay and the equipment that I had stored in the barn.”

The businessman notified Southern Water at once and they sent engineers out the same day to attend to the pump - but not to attend to his property.

He added: “The effluent gushing out has actually cut a channel across my yard.

“The sewage went into my barn and around both sides of it, before eventually flowing into the ditch on the other side of the barn - and so ultimately into the River Beult.

“I did notify the Environment Agency. I also told Southern Water, giving them the identification number of their pumping station.

“They were incredible. In their first response, they suggested that I get a plumber out to fix it!”

Mr Dean said it took the water company several days to replace the broken pump, after which they came and replaced the manhole cover, but nothing more.

He said: “I had about 1500 bales of hay in the barn and the bottom layer is soaked and ruined.

“There were also two chainsaws and four aerators that I use on the fish farm that all got soaked and are probably unworkable now.

“The lost hay alone was worth around £500.”

Mr Dean took over Judge Farm from his father who had used it to rear sheep.

He diversified the operation to create a carp farm, selling the fish to angling clubs.

He said: “Since Southern Water repeatedly failed to call me back when they said they would, I have lodged an official complaint with them. Even then, it was nine days before I heard anything.”

“The area manager rang, but there was still no apology or offer of compensation.”

He said: “To be honest, I could do without all this stress.

“My mother, who has dementia and who I’ve been looking after for the past 10 years, has just had to go into a care home, and another member of my family has also just been diagnosed with a serious medical condition and we are making frequent hospital trips.”

A spokesman for Southern Water said: “We are sorry to hear the impact this flooding incident has had on this business since it happened in November.

“Our teams are investigating the full circumstances and are in contact with the customer involved.”