By SARAH HARKER

RESIDENTS on a housing estate in Orford are outraged that their children are playing near raw sewage leaking from faulty drains.

Families claim that excrement first started to surface before Christmas on a grassed area immediately outside flats on Grasmere Avenue.

But despite visits from Warrington Borough Council's maintenance department, residents claim that the problem has worsened to the extent that now sanitary products as well as excrement are emerging from the ground.

Parents on the estate are frustrated that the problem has not been resolved and that children are playing football in the street near the sewage.

Resident Keith Foxall said: "It's disgusting that there's raw sewage floating just six feet away from where the children are playing football. Once the overflow starts playing up from the third floor flat it just adds to the mess.

"One of my neighbours has just become a dad and he's really concerned about conditions like these. My own daughter's bedroom window looks directly out on to the sewage."

Tom Roberts, the borough council's director of housing, said: "This is a recurring problem. The drains have been cleared and jetted but there is obviously a more serious problem with the piping.

"The next step is to put a camera down into the drainage system to see exactly what the problem is.

"Problems like this usually occur when someone is repeatedly putting something into the system or there is a bigger problem with the underground system."