A LEAKING pipe trickling sewage into a river has been unearthed by workers investigating the cause of a flood.

The Environment Agency was helping to clean-up the remains of a collapsed culvert at the site of firms Pilkington Bros and Connolly's Demolition, in Church, when a worker spotted the cracked pipe.

A slight trickle of effluence was leaking out, seeping through the ground and entering Tinker Brook below.

The pipe and the culvert run under Blackburn Road and were exposed by the Agency after the flooding on November 5, when both firms were swamped under 15ft of water.

Hyndburn Council were contacted and immediate steps were taken to divert the sewage using pumps around the affected area.

Mr Colin Bowman, team leader of the drainage section of Hyndburn Council, said: "This is something we do quite regularly wherever there is a threat of pollution.

"We have no idea of how long it has been leaking and the cause of the cracks is now being investigated."

Work was set to begin today to repair a 14-metre section of the pipe.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.