'I wouldn't let my dogs go in there, you don't know what's in it...

Residents not surprised after river is rated as 'worst in England for sewage dumps'

- By DAN THOMPSON

THE bank of the River Irwell at Sion Street is not for the faint-hearted.

Toxic giant hogweeds that can blister the skin tower up from the undergrowth conspicuous by their umbrella-shaped flower heads. Stagnant, rust-coloured water pools on the ground and litter is strewn all around strips of plastic, old clothes, fly-tipped rubbish.

What looks like a mummified hammock, made out of plastic film, is stretched out between a silver birch and a sycamore. As we squelch along the sodden, filthy riverbank, we grab on to a sturdy-looking tree branch in an attempt to steady ourselves and it snaps off the trunk in our hand, as brittle as a Chipstick.

As for the river itself, it's murky, still - lifeless. A couple of cormorants, spooked by the crunch of a twig underfoot, take off and fly close to the surface of the water before disappearing out of sight. When they're gone, it feels like no other living thing is here.

A dog barks in the distance. Other than that, the only sounds are the rumble of passing cars and aircraft overhead, along with the constant stream of groundwater running into the river from a drain.

Last week the M.E.N. reported how 'colossal volumes of sewage' were being dumped into the rivers of Greater Manchester from combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

CSOs which are managed by United Utilities in our region discharge untreated sewage and wastewater into waterways when the sewerage system becomes overloaded, for example during periods of heavy rainfall.

According to the Top of the Poops website, which has analysed the most recent full-calendar year Environment Agency data available, the CSO at Sion Street in Radcliffe, Bury, was responsible for more sewage spills than at any other location on the Irwell when you compare the duration of the dumps with 2,188 hours in 2023.

That's the equivalent of almost three months of continual sewage spills. There are only 8,760 hours in a year.