PUB couple Craig and Deborah Mansell are kicking up a stink after their beer cellar was flooded with raw sewage three times.

The couple, who run the White Boar Hotel, Radcliffe Road, Bury, claimed the council were slow to act after they were forced to throw away hundreds of pounds worth of stock.

A blocked street drain has since been blamed for causing raw sewage to rise up through a grid in the cellar floor whenever there was heavy rain.

Problems first started at the end of May, when the cellar was awash with what appeared to be rainwater. Two weeks later the cellar ran awash again, this time with raw sewage. Heavy rain on two other days caused the cellar to flood again, leaving Deborah and Craig desperate. Deborah said: "You couldn't even live here. It was disgusting and I had to move the children down to my mother's. It's been disinfected twice but there's still a stench.

"I went down to change a barrel and thought 'Oh God, not again'. It was pure sewage, the cellar was full of it and when the water was drained out it left sewage inches thick on the floor."

Drainage workers from Bury Council pumped out the cellar that evening and probed a nearby drain with camera equipment, revealing tree roots blocking it. The brewery, who hired a contractor to deal with the latest problem, demanded immediate action, with the work carried out five days later.

Craig said: "We told the council about the problem in May when it first happened and then things got worse with the sewage coming in. As soon as it rained we were planning for the cellar to be flooded. It's taken nearly a month to get anything done."

Borough engineer Mike Cannon denied there was a lack of urgency in dealing with the problem and said that it had been necessary to review the camera footage before action was taken.