NORTHUMBRIAN Water is being taken to task by a village which says its sewers are unable to cope with an influx of new homes.

Darlington Borough Council has been alerted to the problems in Middleton St George, which has almost doubled in size during the past 50 years.

Ward councillor Doris Jones told the April parish council that she had been called out following a complaint about the stench in Middleton One Row. Birds raiding the sludge storage tanks appeared to have dropped bits of sewage in a garden.

"The sewage works is so full it is overflowing." she said. "We have been told it is the heavy rain that is flushing it out - but it can't be that at the moment. When we looked at it, everything that goes down the toilets was strewn over the field."

Those problems were being experienced even before an extra 21 homes were built in Killinghall Row and prior to a planning application for another 84 dwellings on the CN Hadley site being decided.

The parish council decided to write to Northumbrian Water asking it to treat the village as an emergency.

Coun Jones told the D&S Times: "In my view this all adds insult to injury after years of voicing our concern over the over-development of the village. We have always maintained the sewers would not be able to cope.

Originally Wendy Lillico, a Darlington environmental health officer, had taken up the village's complaints with Northumbrian Water.

She has suggested netting the sludge tanks to keep birds off, adding: "With respect to the problem of foul odours, it would appear the existing treatment works has exceeded it's working capacity as the storm overflow tank had obviously been in use, despite a long spell of dry weather."

Darlington planning officials had been informed that the inability of the treatment works to cope had "significant implications in terms of proposed housing in and around the village", she added.

A NWA spokeswoman said it had long term plans for the village.

"At the moment the works meet the current performance standards set by the Environment Agency.

"There are going to be new standards, which will have to be met by March 2005. We are in the planning stages for that and will be reviewing development plans."