Complaints over smell from East Yorkshire cannabis farm

Yorkshire Botanicals has been growing hemp at the site in Welton, East Yorkshire, for six years

Complaints have been made about the smell coming from a cannabis farm.

The site in Welton, East Yorkshire, grows medicinal hemp which is available on prescription for chronic pain and epilepsy.

Councillor Terry Gill said East Riding of Yorkshire Council had received a number of complaints about the odour.

Owners Yorkshire Botanicals Limited said it was working with environmental health officers to tackle the problem.

Mr Gill said he had concerns over the location of the site, which is near a school and housing.

"Currently the council has about 28 official complaints," he said.

The use of medicinal cannabis was legalised in 2018. Treatments can be prescribed only by specialist doctors in a limited number of circumstances where other medicines have failed.

Yorkshire Botanicals director Nigel Bartle said the firm had been growing hemp at the site for the last six years.

He said the firm was trying to work out why concerns have been raised now "and not in any previous years".

"We grow a range of varieties and our methods have not changed, but every season is different, and a combination of the weather conditions at different stages, both in temperatures, and wind direction, the varieties on the summer crop and the impact of more people being at home could all have impacted," he said.

"The crops grown over summer have all been harvested now, and we are planning our other crops as in previous years when we have had no reported concerns.

"We will avoid the combination of varieties this summer that appear to have created a unique situation."