“It's disgusting,” shout outraged parents whose children have to paddle through sewers to get to their classrooms
PARENTS have slammed the 'disgusting nightmare' at their children's school after it was flooded with sewage and rainwater.
Students had to wade through sewers and rain poured through the windows at Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, Gtr Manchester.
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Teachers emptied buckets and placed sandbags around the 150-year-old building.
Former England and Manchester United defender Gary Neville and TV star Carol Vorderman have sent their support to headteacher Steve Marsland over the ordeal at the school.
The school has been plagued with problems since a £2.7 million makeover years ago.
It has been flooded evacuated more than six times for a week due to dangerous sewage and the playing fields have become unusable.
The field is covered in craters and rubble and the carcass of one Mini A car was even found underneath.
Mum Hannah Winstanley, 40, said: “It's disgraceful how long this has been going on.
We saw children paddling in the sewer two or three times.
Robert Sziakal
'The municipality seems to be happy that small children are wading through the sewer in their boots. I can't believe this is still happening.
“You see buckets of water everywhere and the children cannot use the playground.”
Father-of-two Robert Sziakal, 37, said: “It's disgusting. My children say they smell sewage. It needs to be fixed.”
Standing on the playground, school principal Mr Marsland said: 'It's a nightmare.
“These are working-class kids from working-class families. It feels like we are being kept in our place.
“If this was a school in a stockbroker's area or wherever Premier League If footballers were alive, this couldn't have continued.
'But it's here. We've had messages from Gary Neville and Carol Vorderman saying how shocked she was by it.
“It's actually scandalous, but we are creating a stink about it by speaking out. This should not happen in a British school.”
He told how children sat in the sewers while rain poured through the windows.
'There are floods and we have to put sandbags against the doors when it rains heavily.
'We've seen children paddling into the sewer two or three times.
“When it first happened, we had little girls who thought they were doing the right thing and tried to mop it up with paper towels.
'So you can imagine that we've had it health problems, all problems with children exposed to sewage.”
Grandfather Stewart Forth, 67, claimed the “great school” had been “shamefully let down”.
“My kids came here and now I'm dropping off my grandkids,” he said.
Mum Claire McDivitt, 40, said: “It's shocking what has happened here.
“Children need to learn not to be exposed to sewage. Those responsible should be ashamed.”
The work at the school, where almost half of the students claim free school mealswas carried out by building the gigantic Carillion between 2013 and 2015.
However, Carillion left the school with a whole new set of problems, including faulty fire doors.
Carillion went bankrupt in 2018 with debts of more than £7 billion.
The school suffers from many deficiencies, including leaking roofs and heating problems.
A spokesperson for Tameside Council said: “Whilst we share and support the same priorities as the headteacher in ensuring that pupils have a safe and healthy learning environment, the local authority is not responsible for the construction of the new school.
“The Department for Education recognized in 2022 that Russell Scott Primary School has long-standing condition issues which can only be addressed by a new school, and we understand that the DfE will work directly with the school to achieve this. ”
The Sun has contacted Russell Scott Primary School and Carillion for comment.
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