Casa Brighouse: Pressure mounts on owner of West Yorkshire restaurant to stop pumping sewage into lake

A misconnected pipe from Casa Brighouse, run by Jack McDaid, has been pumping sewage into Freeman’s Cut, a water skiing lake behind the venue on Elland Road, since December last year.

Users of the lake 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.

And a trustee of the club has hit out at Calderdale Council, the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water for failing to solve the problem.

John Denton, who lives in Ripponden near Halifax, said: “We all lived in hope that because of the urgency of the situation, this would be fast tracked.

“There’s been an increase in deaths of fish and wildfowl, and the local community has had to endure the stench.”

Mr McDaid put in an application for the pipe to be fixed with Yorkshire Water, and created a temporary connection to the sewer network through a manhole.

“We, as a club, allowed immediate access to a contractor to build a manhole that Casa Brighouse would always have access to,” Mr Denton said.

But Yorkshire Water said Mr McDaid’s fix was “illegal and dangerous,” and disconnected it earlier this month, meaning sewage has once again begun to flow into the area surrounding Freeman’s Cut.

An investigation, including decisions on whether to take legal action against Mr McDaid, is being led by Calderdale Council.

But according to Mr Denton, the bodies involved have done little to urgently stop the sewage from flowing.

“We were hoping that Calderdale Council, Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency would act together to try and fast track the approval of the application. And sadly and lamentably, the reverse has been the case,” he said.

“We’re now suffering with ongoing contamination from the raw sewage and because of the risk to human health this poses to us, we've actually shut down as an entity and not allow members to ski on the lake.

“There is absolutely no reason a temporary connection cannot be made. It seems perverse that they are slowing this down, and we and local people are suffering as a consequence. The smell is widespread and it’s nothing short of horrendous.”

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We found an illegal and dangerous connection to the sewer network on February 1 which posed a significant health and safety risk that we could not leave unattended due to public safety concerns. This was disconnected, after discussion with the Environment Agency, and removed with the property owner advised of possible temporary and permanent solutions to resolve this situation.”

A Calderdale Council spokesperson told the Yorkshire Post that enforcement action had been taken by the council against Casa Brighouse, but did not give further details as to the nature of the action.