Disgust over ‘massive health hazard’ as road hit by leaking sewage

Neighbours of a former Angus prison have been left “disgusted” after raw sewage leaked on to the road.

The sewage is coming from the former Noranside Open Prison building, now privately-owned.

More than one Noranside resident reported the matter to Scottish Water, which sent out an engineer but they were unable to fix it.

The sewage has been flowing into the Noran River, which leads to Montrose Basin.

The prison closed in 2011, and has since been sold to a private owner.

Plans were unveiled in 2015 to turn the site into housing.

One local, who declined to be named, said: “I noticed it last week.

“I thought it was maybe just a one-off but I was back there today and there’s water that’s formed puddles in the road.

“There’s cars going through it and splashing through it; it’s coming up fences into the fields and cars have their wipers on going through it.

“There were bits of toilet roll and stuff floating down the side of the road. It’s disgusting. I tried to contact Scottish Water on Friday but I was getting a message saying all the lines were busy.”

The man said he eventually sent them an email.

“That was Friday – you can’t have that sort of stuff running down the road for all that time. It’s a massive health hazard. The people I’ve spoken to are all disgusted.”

The man said other neighbours had noticed it earlier in the week.

He added: “Another resident said it had been leaking every night during the week. He thought it was just water but he was horrified when I told him it was actually raw sewage.

“I spoke to one neighbour and he said he’d also phoned on Friday and had managed to get through. He said Scottish Water told him there was a problem and they were aware of it and would be dealing with it shortly.

“It’s just running down the main road, for about three-quarters of a mile, then into a wide gate in a field that the roads department opened up, and it’s flowing from there into a stone drain.

“From there it goes for another half mile into the Noran River, then into the Montrose Basin ultimately.

“I don’t think raw sewage is allowed to flow into rivers or the basin like that.”

A spokeswoman for Scottish Water said they had been notified about the issue and had attended to assess the problem.

She said there was an issue with the pumping system in place at the former prison and staff would be back out to fix it at a later date.

“I don’t think raw sewage is allowed to flow into rivers

CONCERN: One local said cars are splashing through raw sewage leaking on to the side of the road and have to put their wipers on.