Casa Brighouse: Restaurant owner told to pay up after sewage leak is plugged

A misconnected pipe from Casa Brighouse had been pumping waste into Freeman’s Cut, a water skiing lake behind the venue on Elland Road, since December last year.

Calderdale Council sent workers to cap the pipe and clear waste from the land on Monday, after restaurant owner Jack McDaid ignored enforcement notices that ordered him to stop the leak.

The council said it had “no choice but to take action” and the “cost for all the work will be recovered from the business”.

Ian Day, the council’s Director for Public Services, said: “We absolutely understand people’s concern about this issue, and we share the same frustration that the problem has continued to occur.

“Once we were confident in locating the cause of the drainage issue, we were able to use all our enforcement power to ensure action was taken.

“We’re pleased that the work to cap the pipe is now complete, preventing further issues in the immediate future, but we’re disappointed that the business’ failure to comply with legal notices has meant that we’ve had to use public money to correct this problem.

“A significant amount of work has gone into this case, and we’ll continue to liaise with the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water, work hard to pursue further enforcement action and ensure that a permanent solution is found.

“We’ll also ensure that we’re able to recover all of the council costs related with this work.”

Locals have described their horror at seeing sewage and sanitary waste pollute the area, which has now had to be closed to members of the White Rose Ski Club for safety reasons.

Mr McDaid submitted an application for the issue to be fixed by Yorkshire Water, and temporarily rediverted the leaking pipe into a nearby manhole.

But Yorkshire Water said the “illegal and dangerous” pipe was removed last month, meaning that sewage was once again allowed to flow into the area surrounding Freeman’s Cut, and the application was incomplete.