Sewage Smells

16 August 2013, 12:53 | Updated: 16 August 2013, 12:59

Anglian Water have said sorry for smells that have been coming from a sewage works on the edge of Milton Keynes.

Heart has had reports of foul smells emanating from the Cotton Valley Sewage Works, close to Junction 14 of the M1, over the summer.

Anglian Water have told Heart a malfunction at the end of June caused the odours coming from the site at Pineham to be much worse than normal, but they believe they are getting things under control.

The company also say they are putting in lots of work to stop odours spreading.

It's possible the smells this summer may have been made worse by the hot weather during July, making things seem much worse than they were over the wet summer of 2012.

John Clare from the company said: “We apologise for any bad smells from our Cotton Valley Water Recycling Centre.

“While it is inevitable there will be some odour from time to time, we accept the current situation could be improved and are working hard to make things better.
 
“Since 2011 we have spent more than £600,000 on different measures, from enclosing tanks to installing odour controlling sprays.
 
“We have also drafted in extra staff to help keep the site clean and mobile odour control units which can be used around the works when and where they are needed.”
 
He added: “There was a specific issue in June when part of the treatment process failed to restart properly after its annual maintenance shutdown.
 
“This is now working again and steps have been taken to make sure any similar problems in future can be solved much faster to avoid smells escaping.
 
“Further work is planned and we are carrying out a survey of the site to see if there are any other areas which could be improved.
 
“We have also invited community representatives to join a liaison group to keep them informed of progress and this will meet for the first time next week.”