Overnight CCTV plan to tackle Rasen’s smelly river

Work has begun to fix a broken drain that has led to an ‘horrendous’ smell coming from the River Rase.
Ducks in the River RaseDucks in the River Rase
Ducks in the River Rase

Residents began to raise concerns about the welfare of the town’s ducks after noticing an awful smell coming from the murky river.

The Environment Agency identified a ‘misconnected drain’ causing the issue - and now Anglian Water is working overnight to tackle the problem.

An Anglian Water spokesman told the Rasen Mail: “Our teams are using CCTV cameras to trace the source of the misconnected drain in Market Rasen.

Ducks in the RaseDucks in the Rase
Ducks in the Rase

“These investigations are on-going as we need to undertake this work at night time to minimise disruption for residents and road users.”

Discussing the issue at Market Rasen Town Council’s May meeting, Mayor John Matthews said: “Our hands our very tied on that [river issue] as it’s not ours.”

Coun Matthews said all the town council could do was keep pushing the Environment Agency and Anglian Water.

And Coun Matthews said he had spotted some work taking place.

Market Rasen Action Group (MRAG) captured the photo above and said: “The smell of the water near the ducks is horrendous.”

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “It’s our role to protect people and the environment from pollution, and our teams have investigated this issue and discovered a misconnected drain.

“We are working with Anglian Water as they investigate this further and plan repairs, but in the meantime, we’d always remind people to avoid water which looks or smells bad, and to report any suspected pollution.”

An Anglian Water spokesman added: “If members of the public spot anything unusual, they can report it to us on our Pollution Watch hotline number 03457 145 145 and we will investigate to help protects our waterways - even if it’s nothing to do with Anglian Water.”

Residents can report pollution to the Environment Agency by calling its hotline number, 0800 80 70 60.