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<\/p>\nResidents in a small British village have been left fuming \u2013 and fumigating \u2013 after the area was taken over by a horrific smell.<\/p>\n
Gelligaer in Caerphilly, Wales, only has a population of around 18,500, yet its history dates back to 103 AD. However, in more nearly 2,000 years of existence, locals have never been so enraged as they are now thanks to the smells created by a farm turned into a sustainable waste disposal plant and sandstone quarry \u2013 and it has been going on for more then 20 years.<\/p>\n
According to Wales Online the Bryn Group, took over a huge 350-hectare farm and turned it into a waste management operation, and it now has a heard of 730 Holstein Fresian cows – all of which create certain smells. It takes the waste from both cows and humans, such as food waste and composting, and turns it into renewable electricity and fertiliser.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Monkeys now 'communicating with smells like cats' as they're drowned out by city noise<\/b><\/p>\n
For more news of angry locals and smell towns, click here.<\/b><\/p>\n
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The company, which has around 100 staff, also makes sandstone for roads from its quarry at the same site. The activities at the site have created a \u201cconstant stench, 365 days a year,\u201d locals are now claiming.<\/p>\n
Sherry Spencer, 72, who has lived in Gelligaer all her life said: \u201dWe\u2019ve been surrounded by farms here for more than a century and we\u2019ve never had smells like we have now. It\u2019s like a sulphurous smell, like acid has gone up your nose. Other times it\u2019s like there\u2019s a public toilet in your back garden. The smell now is as bad as ever.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfter 20 years of complaining we haven\u2019t got an inch, so in the end I retired as secretary of the liaison group because the group wasn\u2019t making a difference. I put my house up for sale because I\u2019m diabetic and I fell down the stairs, so I needed to downsize.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had three people one day come and see the house and the village was absolutely stinking. Everyone that visited knew it wasn\u2019t a typical farm smell \u2013 it\u2019s absolutely disgusting.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery person who came here asked me about the smell andI was embarrassed but I couldn\u2019t lie to them and sell them my house under false pretences. In the end they all turned me down.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went on to claim that the company who owns the site refuses to \u201cgive an inch\u201d during conversations with them about it.<\/p>\n
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A statement from the company maintained the smells have never seen the food waste part of the operation given \u201cany kind of enforcement notice\u201d and that \u201cresearch shows that digestate biofertiliser has a lower odour profile than raw cattle slurry and the odour dissipates much more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman said: "The cows eat a lot of sileage, which we grow on our farm, and produce a large amount of slurry, which we process on-site along with food waste from across Caerphilly in our anaerobic digester. We have taken significant measures to manage the cattle slurry, such as improving rainwater management.<\/p>\n
"We know that odours and activity associated with our dairy farm are often incorrectly attributed to the recycling facility and anaerobic digester we have on site."<\/p>\n
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