AUTHORITIES have been aware of raw sewage being pumped into a popular beauty spot as long ago as 2004, it has been revealed.

The revelation was made at a meeting to discuss the future of Island Lodge, in Tottington, on Tuesday night.

Campaigners say sewage being pumped into the lodge via wrongly connected drains from a nearby housing estate has caused it to deteriorate over the course of several years.

The lodge, which is situated off the Kirklees Trail — known locally as ‘The Lines’ — was popular with fisherman and dog walkers, but is now filled with hundreds of dead fish and algae.

Hundreds turned out to the meeting at Greenmount United Reformed Church, where a representative from United Utilities admitted the firm had been aware of problems with the lodge as far back as 2004 ­— two years before Bury Council inherited the lodge from its previous owner.

A council representative said that after taking ownership of the lodge, they had also realised raw sewage was being pumped in it. They added that there was also a problem with the dam wall, which would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to fix.

The representative from United Utilities told the meeting that 37 household drains had been wrongly connected to the lodge. While 21 had since been fixed, 12 continue to pump sewage into the water.

However, United Utilities said they had no powers to reconnect the drains as it was the "responsibility of private households."

They claimed that the 12 "are not having a significant impact" on the state of the lodge, and that the main problem was caused by the lack of a fresh water supply into it.

Cllr Alan Quinn, cabinet member for the environment, reiterated that the drains were the responsibility of residents, and said he would look into the possibility of the council assisting homeowners with the cost of reconnecting their drains.

He added that the council were also exploring potential avenues of funding and had looked into the possibility of using money left over from the Radcliffe and Redvales flood defence scheme to fund a solution to the problem.

Mike Duddy from the Mersey Basin Rivers Trust told the meeting that one possible solution could be to use the lodge as a flood storage area as part of the scheme.

He added: “The people who designed Island Lodge had simple ideas and I think the fix to it is fairly simple.”

But, Christine Taylor from the Tottington Civic Society, who have been at the forefront of the campaign to restore the lodge to its former glory, called on United Utilities to take responsibility for the state of the lodge.

She said: “I am very disappointed by United Utilities’ lack of responsibility over this. Without that drain being there, the lodge would not be in the state it is.”

The firm’s representative responded to say the drain had been inherited from the previous owner and reiterated that householders had responsibility for their own drains.

Residents also spoke out about the lack of warnings about the pollution.

One said: “There are children going down and feeding the ducks and there is no notice warning people about pollution.

“There are dogs going in and having to go to the vets afterwards.”

A council representative urged residents to keep dogs and children out of the water.