A water company has revealed that a sewer in Congleton town centre overflowed due to a build-up of toilet paper and sanitary items.

Human excrement was seen flowing out of the drains outside Wetherspoons and causing quite a smell around the town centre on Tuesday evening.

United Utilities has called on the community to play their part in ensuring the "unpleasant problem" does not happen again.

A spokesperson for United Utilities said: "Our engineers were called out Wednesday evening to clear a blocked sewer outside the Wetherspoon pub in Congleton.

"A build-up of toilet paper and sanitary items had clogged the sewer and caused it to overflow.

"We can all do our bit to prevent this unpleasant problem by thinking before we flush.

"Only the three Ps should be put down your loo – pee, poo and toilet paper."

The Counting House - JD Wetherspoon, told Nub News that they believed the issue was not related to themselves, but instead due to recent heavy rainfall.

A Wetherspoon spokesman said: " We were fully aware of the issue and contacted United Utilities to attend and deal with this.

"We do not believe it is connected with the pub but appears to be an issue with a heavy rain downpour.

"Staff used car park barriers to cordon off the area from pedestrians and customers.

"United Utilities confirmed that they would attend and clean the area."