By Hayley Robinson

Water leaking into a downstairs flat resulted in the discovery of a cannabis factory.

Police seized 170 cannabis plants from a flat in Newington High Street on Monday, December 13, after the letting agent was called to investigate where the water was coming from.

The landlord of the flat, who wishes to remain anonymous, now faces a huge repair bill to restore the property.

He believes the crop, which has an estimated street value of £25,000, could have gone undiscovered had it not been for a hydroponics system – which creates a fine mist to feed the plants – leaking water into the flat below.

He said: "There’s a fair bit of damage and they’ve taken all the valuable stuff away. They’ve cut a lot of holes in the ceilings and walls to put things through, adapted the wiring and took various sockets off walls so I need to get an electrician in to check all the electrics and I need to get the holes filled in.

"There was no area to live in. They’d put in huge beams running from left to right across the rooms for lights and hooks and there was lots of electrical monitoring equipment – it was very professional.

"It looks as if they had been doing it for quite a while and they probably could have got away with it for a little longer had it not been for a schoolboy error with the hydroponics system leaking."

No arrests have been made to date and investigations are ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 01795 419182 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 quoting CY/19792/10.