A DISTRAUGHT pensioner couple are facing a massive clean-up after severe flooding left their front garden looking like an "estuary."

Jean and Denis Rumsey, who are in their 70s, will have to remove the mud and slurry themselves after the Highways Partnership Unit ruled it was not responsible for the mess.

Mrs Rumsey said she was "heartbroken" at the damage done to their garden off Tandy Lane, Barnett Brook, near Harvington, last week.

Neighbour Jane Ovenstone said she had contacted the district and county council in an effort to get help with cleaning up the couple's garden, without success.

She said: "Last night they were in such a mess. They don't know which way to turn. It needs a team of men to clean up.

"The mud and water, with sewage from the septic tank mixed in, stank and was all over the garden and around the house. It was like an estuary."

She said flooding of Tandy Lane had become a recurrent problem over the last five to six years with water forcing closure of the lane as recently as this week.

Councillor Stephen Clee visited Tandy Lane following a call from the couple's neighbour the next day.

He said: "It's horrendous. A river of five feet of mud and slurry and water and water came off fields and washed down into the lane."

He claimed the county council had under-funded the highways department over the last eight years, leaving it unable to address the problem.

But he praised the work of county council staff who unblocked drains the next day and hosed down the lane, and district council workmen who, although it was not their responsibility, had disinfected waste in the garden including 'contaminated sewage.'

Jeff Romanis, of Worcestershire County Council, said: "I understand in this case the excess water arrived from agricultural land, running off the fields, and while we do clean out the ditches and ensure that road drainage is not blocked, we do not have responsibility to an individual's private land."