Stink from Bury landfill prompts call for operator ban

The site near the M66 has been causing a stink since the summer

The firm behind a landfill said to be giving off a "stunning stench" should lose its licence, a council leader said.

People living near the Pilsworth South dump, near Bury in Greater Manchester, have been complaining about the odour since the summer.

Neil Emmott, from Rochdale Council, called for the Environment Agency to strip Valencia Waste Management Ltd of its licence.

The firm has apologised for the smell.

At a meeting of Greater Manchester political leaders, the region's mayor Andy Burnham described the smell as being like nothing he had experienced before.

He said it was "not acceptable in the slightest" and that he had met with officials from the Environment Agency and UK Health Security Agency to resolve the problem.

An overhead shot of the Pilsworth South site

In January, a spokesperson for Valencia Waste Management Ltd said it was "committed to being a responsible operator and working alongside our local community".

"During recent months, we have been undertaking extensive engineering works on site to improve odour control."

Mr Emmott said: "I went past it [on Thursday] and it smelled as bad as it has been.

He added that the firm was "not a good operator".

Bury Council leader Eamonn O'Brien said residents could find it "impossible to open their windows" in the summer, when they could face "a choice between either cooling down or being hit in the face with this smell".

A representative for the Environment Agency said its officers were attending the site "on a regular basis and our regulatory investigations are currently ongoing".

"We are using the regulatory powers available to us while working with multi-agency partners to resolve this issue."

Valencia Waste Management Ltd is yet to respond to requests for comment.

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