The gorgeous village named UK 'best' forced to pull out of competition due to awful smell

A charming village was forced to pull out of a ‘best kept’ competition as Thames Water revealed that raw sewage was being released into its river for months.

Residents of Chalfont St Giles, in Buckinghamshire, had been complaining extensively as a foul smell descended on the picturesque village, which has won the Best Kept title six times since 2002.

Since learning of the cause behind the stomach-churning aroma, authorities have closed a children's playground, river walk and duck pond, and pulled out of the annual contest, which ranks villages on their tidiness, appropriateness, and typicality.

"We're all gutted”, Robert Gill, from the parish council, said. “We're parishioners ourselves and it took a lot of time for us to debate this.

"It is important to villagers to that we enter these competitions but we were left with no choice. Chalfont St Giles is a quintessential and beautiful village. It is a lovely place to live with our river running through. It has been ruined by the actions of Thames Water. They sacrificed us to deal with other problems.

"It is bad enough that this has happened and we don't want it to happen again."

According to Gill, the smell started to occur in June last year, with the parish council initially told it was due to drains. However, they learned in January 2024 that the Amersham Road Balancing Tank was overflowing, and consequently dumping diluted sewage into the River Misbourne, which runs through the village.

"The parish council had a letter in February from the Environmental Agency informing them there had been an incident and the sewers has flooded”, Gill said.

"From our understanding, Thames Water diverted sewage from the sewers and into our river. The way it was worded, it sounded like a single incident but this has been going on for months - they've been using the river to keep the pressure down.

"Our village show has had to be cancelled. It is quite a major issue for us as we've lost much of our summer festivities to this. The way the best kept village is marked, they look at playgrounds, open areas, places where people tend to congregate and enjoy the village. We've told people you shouldn't be near those areas at the moment, especially the children's play area. It would be a waste of time for people coming to see us."