A water company has apologised for allowing raw sewage to leak into the garden of a retirement homes development for nearly a week.

Pensioner Fraser Miller spotted a murky brown liquid containing human faeces seeping from a manhole cover outside his flat in Hoo - and immediately reported it to Southern Water.

He was told it would probably be 72 hours before a technician could come round and fix it.

And this was despite being advised that it was in the grounds of Flack Gardens a complex of 36 apartments where most of the residents were over the age of 80 and some were vulnerable.

Mr Miller, 80, was then assured three days later that a workman was on his way - but a further three days later, when he eventually got through to the provider, he learned that the person allocated to the job had phoned in sick.

He and wife Chisteen, 75, discovered the foul discharge leaking just feet away from his ground floor on the morning of Saturday March 11 after returning from a dog walk.

It was only sorted on the following Friday after numerous calls from the couple and manager of the retirement scheme expressing the urgency of the matter.

Retired staff nurse Christeen, said: "No matter what we kept telling them it fell on deaf ears.

"Thankfully it was not in the summer because it would have smelled more and we would not have been able to open the windows."

She said that all the time sewage was leaking out increasingly by the day, they were unable to let their Jack Russell, Freddy, outdoors.

"We've all heard about their reputation for discharging sewage out into the sea," she added."They should be taken more to account."

A spokesman for Southern Water, said: "We’re very sorry that we did not fix this problem as quickly as we would have liked, and we are looking into the reasons for the delay.

"We have since carried out a full clean-up of the manhole and resolved the issue."