An award-winning village has pulled out of a 'Best Kept' contest after discovering raw sewage had been dumped into the river that runs through it for months.
Pretty Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, which nestles on the edge of the picturesque Chiltern Hills has won the county's 'Best Kept Village' contest six times since 2002. But last week it was forced to withdraw for this year's contest after Thames Water admitted it has been releasing sewage into the river Misbourne since January.
Villagers have been complaining for months about a foul smell and after learning of the discharges have closed a children's playground, river walk and duck pond. The parish council said it had also made the decision to withdraw from the competition which ranks villages on their tidiness, appropriateness, and typicality.
Robert Gill, from the parish council, said he was "absolutely appalled" by the sewage running through Chalfont St Giles and that the village had been "sacrificed". Mr Gill, 58, said: "We're all gutted. We're parishioners ourselves and it took a lot of time for us to debate this.
"It is important to villagers to that we enter these competitions but we were left with no choice. Chalfont St Giles is a quintessential and beautiful village. It is a lovely place to live with our river running through. It has been ruined by the actions of Thames Water. They sacrificed us to deal with other problems.
"It is bad enough that this has happened and we don't want it to happen again." Mr Gill, who has lived in the village for 20 years, said villages became aware of sewage smells in June of last year and the parish council were initially told it could be the drains. However in January of this year, they found that the Amersham Road Balancing Tank was overflowing and pumping diluted sewage into the River Misbourne.
The river flows through the village and Mr Gill said a specialist team sent out by Thames Water found that levels of contamination were high. Mr Gill said: "The parish council had a letter in February from the Environmental Agency informing them there had been an incident and the sewers has flooded.
"From our understanding, Thames Water diverted sewage from the sewers and into our river. The way it was worded, it sounded like a single incident but this has been going on for months - they've been using the river to keep the pressure down." Mr Gill said the letter said that Thames Water had taken action to reduce the amount of sewage entering the sewer network which resulted into sewage flowing into the river since January 3.
Chalfont St Giles were the winners of the 'Best Kept Village' award in 2023 and were hoping to scoop a further award in which previous winners can compete against each other. Mr Gill said: "The cup means where if you win multiple years on the trot, you're in the running for getting the best village for multiple years. This has removed any chance of getting that.
"Our village show has had to be cancelled. It is quite a major issue for us as we've lost much of our summer festivities to this. The way the best kept village is marked, they look at playgrounds, open areas, places where people tend to congregate and enjoy the village. We've told people you shouldn't be near those areas at the moment, especially the children's play area. It would be a waste of time for people coming to see us."
Mr Gill said the parish council are investigating how the diluted sewage was left pumping into their river for so long and what they can do to stop it from happening again. He added: "We've never had sewage before. Sometimes it floods as we're on a flood plain, but now we've got sewage seeping into the fields from the flooding.
"It has been an awful period of time for us and we're seeking to find out why it happened and what changes will be made going forward." Chalfont St Giles is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 was home to poet John Milton when he completed Paradise Lost.
It was also used a film set for the 1971 film Dads' Army where it represented Walmington-on-Sea. A host of celebrities have previously lived in the village including Ozy Osbourne and Noel Gallagher. Thames Water were contacted for comment. The Best Kept Village contest is organised by the Campaign for Rural England.