Didcot odour from landfill site keeps residents up at night

Following months of odour complaints, the FCC Environment landfill penned an open letter to homeowners near the site which sits between Appleford and Sutton Courtenay

The Environment Agency said in a statement “could take several months” until the odour is controlled.

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The smell is coming from contaminated water in the operational area of the landfill site which needs to be removed as a “priority”, said the Environment Agency who classified it as a “significant odour incident”.

In May, 130 reports were made about an odour coming from the site with more than over 100 complaints received by the Environment Agency in June.

It is understood there has been a recent spike of complaints specifically from Didcot residents last week.

The FCC Environment landfill between Appleford and Sutton Courtenay (Image: Google Maps)
Hannah Wade, who lives in the town, said she was woken up by the odour on Saturday (June night 29).

She said: “It's absolutely disgusting.

“We have been complaining to the Environment Agency for months, so to hear that it is likely to take several months for the issue to be resolved is so frustrating.

“The open letter from FCC was so disappointing to us.

“It was shocking to see nothing even remotely resembling an apology in the letter.

It feels like the FCC is treating local residents with total disdain.

“The odour issue is so bad that residents are being woken up by it, and having to close windows on warm nights.

“Many of us are also very worried about the health impacts of breathing in the polluted air too.”

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The open letter from FCC Environment reads: “FCC is currently undertaking a large area of engineered capping and works to facilitate our ongoing operations on site.

“All these works, are ongoing and have been discussed and agreed with the Environment Agency.

“FCC realises a number of complaints have been made and FCC staff continue to carry out daily monitoring on site using specialist monitoring equipment, and several odour inspections are completed each day off-site. 

“Feedback from our investigations into each complaint has been fed back to the Environment Agency.”

Councillor for Didcot North East Andrew Tinsley, said: “One of the fundamental problems has been the very poor communications from FCC.

"I am deeply disappointed there isn’t even a basic apology or acknowledgement of local residents problems caused by this issue with FCC’s Landfill.”

"The engineering repair side will take time, and I strongly suspect this odour issue will unfortunately still be bubbling away in a month or two.

"Why the engineering in this landfill cell failed, allowing groundwater to get in, and its implications for the site, need to be looked into further by the Environment Agency, and the results made public."

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said:  “We are satisfied that FCC is progressing with their plan to reduce the ponded leachate on site which is the main source of odour.

“Our officers are in regular contact with FCC and continue to inspect the site and undertake odour surveys.

“We are making sure FCC are tackling this issue as a priority to stop odour from their site impacting residents.

“We encourage residents to continue to report odour from the site to our 24/7 freephone pollution hotline on 0800 807060.”