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A plastic rocking horse, a dining chair, a child's scooter and a football were found to be blocking a sewer pipe in the Highlands.

Five workers from Scottish Water dug a two metre (6ft) hole and spent 12 hours retrieving the rubbish dumped down a manhole at Milnafua near Alness.

Scottish Water said it believed someone had used the pipe as a fly tip.

Other items pulled out included a yellow cricket bat, a sandcastle mould and a paint pot.

Garry Kirkwood, Scottish Water's customer manager for sewer response, said: "It looks like someone has looked to use this manhole as some kind of tip.

"Some may see comedy about this incident but there is an underlying serious matter - sewers are not a dumping ground for household refuse or unwanted items.

"Blocked sewers cause serious problems to the network such as floods that affects homes, businesses and roads as well as the cost of having to get crews out to clear the blockages."

He added: "To have a crew of five to be tied up for 12 hours on this urgent clear-up job also means that other repair incidents had to be delayed."

It is not the first time Scottish Water workers have had to recover large objects from blocked sewers.

DuringI 2014, the company said its staff had pulled a large Winnie the Pooh teddy, a bike, a fax machine, jeans and a snake from Scottish sewers.