A community affected by a series of sewage spills from a treatment centre owned by one of the country’s biggest water suppliers, Thames Water, has put in a claim for compensation.

Little Marlow Residents Association has been in touch with the company after it was ordered to pay more than £20 million in fines and costs for the pollution incidents at Little Marlow and five other sites.

Hundreds of fish and birds died over a two-year period when "out of control" sewage treatment centres, owned by Thames Water, sent untreated water into rivers in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

Cllr Jason Downes, who sits on Little Marlow Parish Council and is also chairman of the residents’ association said a letter has been sent to the Environment Agency, which was collating claims from affected communities and sending them to Thames Water.

He said: “The judge basically said that Thames Water hadn’t made an attempt to address the uncommercial claims, regarding individual loss of habitat. They invited communities to put in claims for compensation.

“We have put a claim in on behalf of the residents association because we spoke to a lot of people whose daily routines were impacted, whose kids couldn’t walk down that road to school in Bourne End, people who couldn’t cycle down there.

“We drafted up a letter and sent it in purely under loss of amenity.”

Cllr Downes said Little Marlow County Park, which was severely affected when large quantities of untreated sewage was released into the Thames, resulting a riverside meadow adjacent to the treatment works being “badly polluted”, has also put in a separate claim for compensation.