Phone books dumped

The BT phonebooks for the Manchester South region – which includes areas in Vale Royal – were found floating close to Vale Royal Locks, near the Blue Bridge at Hartford.

The books are delivered to households in Vale Royal by paid distributors working on behalf of Birkenhead-based marketing company Link Direct.

British Waterways workers fished out the books over the weekend and officials believe there are still at least 100 more in the river.

Steve O’Sullivan, customer operations supervisor for British Waterways, said that the books could easily have caused flooding further down the river.

“At this present time due to the weather, we are carrying out flood running to try and maintain the river levels,” he said.

“The books could have blocked some of the sluices and caused real problems for people in the vicinity of the river. It has caused more issues than the people who did it ever thought it would.

“It was a very irresponsible act.”

Peter Shaw, lock keeper at Vale Royal locks, said staff had first found the books on Thursday morning.

He said: “They have come all the way down the river and we’re not sure where they have come from but it could be either Newbridge or Winsford.”

British Waterways staff Mel Blakey and Martin Buck began the clear up over the weekend.

Clogged Mel said: “As boats were coming through, the water was sucking the books into the system so we had to catch them before they could get into the system or it would have clogged it up.”

Paula Sanders, from Link Direct, said it was the first time they had heard of the books being dumped.

She said: “Normally BT inform of us of anything but this is the first time we’ve heard.

“We have an environmental policy and we are concerned that these books have been dumped.

“We are never going to be able to trace them down but we may be able to narrow it down. Normally distributors don’t dump them in the area where they live so they could be up to 10 miles away.

“We will assist British Waterways in any way that we can.”