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by Claire Young on 29 April, 2015
Over the last 5 years smell incidents related to the abattoir have greatly reduced but there have still been some, particularly up on Westerleigh Hill. Last week while out talking to residents there I reported an odour incident to the Environment Agency. The official working on the case says that he thinks he has identified an activity at the abattoir that may be causing the odour and will be meeting staff on site in May to look at what measures can be put in place.
Don’t forget, if you think an odour is coming from the abattoir ring Dominic Sugrue of Tulip on 0117 957 6056 and if the odour persists without a satisfactory response, call the Environment Agency hotline on 0800 80 70 60.
4 Comments
Good Evening
Having just made an offer on a new house I thought I would take a look at the local village via the Internet and of course came across your comments about the odours from the abitwua. Can I please ask and would wish for a honest answer, can you smell this on a regular basis? We are hoping to move not to far from the store wot not and rather hoping that you can’t smell anything. I remember visiting the local garden centre and experienced this terrible smell which unfortunately stopped me in my tracks and sadly have never returned. I was hoping the smell wouldn’t reach Westerleigh but I could be wrong. Look forward to hearing from you. Andrea
Thanks for your query.
Before one of the meetings on this subject, I plotted a map of the smell incidents I was aware of. Smells did reach the village but none were reported from near Wot Nots. That’s not to say you can never smell anything there, but it’s not somewhere where people have reported problems.
The “Westerleigh smell” has actually turned out to be a number of different things and over the last 5 years many have been dealt with. For example:
– chemical dosing was introduced at the Kidney Hill pumping stage to address a problem caused by sewage sitting for too long
– chemical dosing was introduced at the abattoir, who have a licence to discharge into the sewers
– a new air filtration system was installed at the abattoir, which has reduced airborne odours significantly.
– last year the process for handling and storing ABP (animal by-products) was improved (see http://westerleigh.mycouncillor.org.uk/2014/11/19/latest-on-westerleigh-smell-2/#page-content)
What I’m getting now are occasional complaints of airborne smells up on Westerleigh Hill and very occasional complaints of smells at Mill Crescent. Having spoken to the Environment Agency official today he seemed pretty confident he’d identified the cause.
I hope that’s reassuring.
Claire
It would also be interesting to know how far the odour from Shortwood Quarry Landfill spreads accross when experiencing south westerley(!) winds. Something noticeable when travelling down the M4, could this be mistaken for the abattoir smell? We look forward to moving to wonderful Westerleigh real soon
Regards
Mike Musty
Having visited various waste processing plants and spent an evening walking round the village and the perimeter of the abattoir with an environment agency official I think the two smells are quite different – but if you haven’t smelt both it might be possible to confuse the two.
I look forward to meeting you some time in Westerleigh.