Music festival goes ahead after blocked sewer cleared with just days to spare
The news that a blockage in a sewer at a rugby club in Walsall has been fixed is music to festival-goers' ears.
Handsworth RFC on Birmingham Road has seen dirty water and sewage seep onto the pitch in the early part of the week – disrupting club training for the new season, dog training sessions, and putting the annual Scubs music festival in doubt.
Severn Trent engineers have been on site on numerous occasions but the pitch was still seeing the problem causing issues until Wednesday, with music fans due to arrive in campervans on Friday for the two-day festival.
Mark Harvey, who has organised the event for the last four years, said it had been a real concern as to whether Severn Trent would get the job done in time and there was a real fear that if it was 'patched up' any wet weather would cause the sewer to overflow again.
He said: "I don't do this for a living, it is more of a labour of love, but advance ticket sales have been good and if this had been called off I would have stood to lose up to £10,000.
"A lot of people come from across the region for this festival, and obviously if there was to be an issue with water and sewage coming onto the pitch it would have stopped them from doing this – I have been down here most days this week and the smell was horrible early on
"Engineers have been on site at various times but didn't seem to solve the problem and in the end it was down to hoping the weather stayed dry which thankfully it has so the festival will go ahead."
Paul Rogers from the rugby club said the issue had been a concern because various clubs and organisations use the site such as the dog trainers.
He said: "We have started pre-season training as well and the problem with the sewer meant we could only use certain areas of the pitch. The festival brings in income in bar takings as well so that is an important consideration."
Scott Burgin, team manager at Severn Trent said: “We found a blockage in the sewer near Handsworth rugby club, which has now been removed.
“We’ve sorry for any distress or inconvenience caused by this issue and we’ll get everything back to normal as quickly as possible."
