An increase in the number of odour pollution complaints to the Environment Agency in Penrith — rising from 311 in 2022 to 1,367 in 2023 — has led to a call for the issue to be recognised as a statutory nuisance.
Fresh AIR for Penrith campaigner Jeff Thomson has requested an urgent meeting with Westmorland and Furness Council.
He wants the county council to enforce regulations under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
This would make the council an enforcing authority able to take action in cases of odour pollution, including industrial.
“The number of individual reports to the Environment Agency’s odour hotline from the Penrith area reaching 1,367 in one year, is ample evidence of an odour pollution problem,” said Mr Thomson.
“It is a nuisance with massive impact on the way local people, and visitors to the town, lead their lives. The source has to be formally identified, investigated and the odour stopped.”
One source of odour affecting the town is alleged to be an animal rendering plant operated by the Leo Group on the west side of the town.
Leo Group has its own dedicated phone number for reporting odour complaints — 07976 857 435.
The Environment Agency has confirmed to Thomson, not all reports can necessarily be attributed to the Leo Group’s Omega Proteins plant.
Thomson, who was for a short period a town councillor for the west ward and now chairs Castletown Community Action Group as well as being the lead Fresh AIR for Penrith campaigner, says residents are not prepared to put up with another year of odour pollution.
“We don’t want to be making odour complaints for the rest of 2024. Action must be taken to give us ‘clean fresh air’, not ‘odour polluted air’,” said Mr Thomson.
Penrith residents who do suffer from odour pollution are asked to report immediately to the Environment Agency 24/7 odour hotline 0800 80 70 60.
