Scots pub flooded with sewage

An Ayrshire pub lost a week of trade over Christmas due to an external sewage problem, which caused the pub to be flooded with excrement.

Ongoing engineering works by Scottish Water in the Kilwinning street where the Tower Inn is situated caused sewage to overflow out of the pub's toilets in the week leading up to Christmas.

Margaret Bradford, owner of the Tower Inn, was forced to close the pub for three and a half days from Monday 20 December to clean up the mess.

"I was fighting a losing battle," she said. "I had to close."

The problem settled briefly over Christmas itself and the pub reopened until 27 December when both the ladies and gents toilets began overflowing again and Bradford was forced to close for another three days.

"I had to empty six buckets of sewage," she said. "The mess was a few inches deep in the urinals with four inches on the floor of the gents'. It had spilled into the lounge, which is carpeted, and all the way to the pool tables."

As the affected area was mostly tiled, Bradford is hoping that damage will be minimal.

She rang Scottish Water four times over the period, but though the problem has settled again, the root of it is still unknown.

Bradford is looking into assessing the value of lost trade and claiming compensation from Scottish Water.

A Scottish Water spokesman said: "Regeneration work in Main Street, Kilwinning was carried out by the local authority.

"Scottish Water will investigate to establish if there is a problem with our apparatus in the area and, if so, what the cause is. This investigative work will be carried out as quickly as possible and might include the use of CCTV.

"We will take any action we believe is necessary when we have completed the investigative work."