A North Yorkshire farmer has revealed the "nightmare" of having human waste spilling onto his farm for the last 10 months causing him to lose thousands.

Jonathan Richardson explained that the first incident happened on his land near Skeeby back in November 2023 during Storm Debi.

He has taken pictures over the last few months of the most extreme leaks of sewage onto his land.

In total, he believes that he has lost £20,000 from not being able to graze his cows on the 11-acre field.

(Image: Jonathan Richardson)

Mr Richardson said: "I have taken pictures throughout the last few months to show how bad it has been.

"It has got much worse as time has gone on. They never clean anything up.

"At the start, I called Yorkshire Water and said we were going to have cattle back in there.

"They never attempted any clean up. One day they came and put cement around the hole. 

"It has been a nightmare. It's hard getting hold of them (Yorkshire Water).

"There is clear excessive damage to the land from raw sewage going onto it from their manhole outlet, and in the pictures you can see the raw sewage and sanitary products.

*Warning distressing images*

(Image: Jonathan Richardson) (Image: Jonathan Richardson)

"This sewage outlet has been an ongoing problem reported many times over the past 10 months with no attempts from Yorkshire Water to stop it or clean anything thing up.

"The Environment Agency were called but never came out and saw the spillage going directly into Skeeby beck which then goings into the River Swale.

"This is one of our main grazing fields and now can’t be used, we have hungry cows and we can’t put them into graze. We did soils test showing heavy metals were traced in the soil."

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: "We understand that this is frustrating for the customer and we have supported them the best way we can since the original flooding occurred during the named storm event (Debi) in November 2023.

"This has included a number of investigations such as camera surveys and ammonia testing, as well as undertaking preventative measures such as refurbishing manhole covers and desilting the sewer line to ensure that they are operating at their full capacity.

"We have also been in regular contact with the customer as we’re investigating and organising clean-up after extraordinary incidents.  The next steps will be to fence off the area and complete further soil tests so that we can fully understand the cause."

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: "Our investigation into a report of sewage in a field at Skeeby found a manhole was discharging into the field and we have reported the issue to Yorkshire Water for further investigation. There’s no evidence to suggest that it has reached Skeeby Beck.

"We always encourage members of the public to report environmental incidents to us. They can contact us 24/7 on our freephone incident hotline 0800 807060."