Owners of a slaughterhouse have been fined £300,000 for failing to stop odour pollution after making the lives of residents of a market town in Norfolk a misery during the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020.
Folk in Attleborough, near Norwich, were plagued by the stench from decaying poultry at a local abattoir owned by Banham Poultry (2018) Ltd, with locals describing the putrid smell as like “rotting bodies and flesh”. A court heard the Environment Agency received nearly 350 complaints from people living in the area surrounding the site.
District judge Andrew King was told how the abattoir had broken or damaged doors and walls, a roof so weak it collapsed, and how another part of the site was unsafe for Environment Agency staff to enter. He acknowledged practices at Banham Poultry had a “significant effect on quality of life” in the town.
The stench and odour became that bad that people refused to go outside, with nauseating smells even pervading their homes. And this at a time when the UK population were forced into lockdown due to the pandemic, with the message from the Government to “stay indoors”.
The foul smells, though, around Attleborough began more than a year before lockdown. Nine complaints were made about the slaughterhouse in early 2019, with the Environment Agency warning the company to get its act together after it was found they were keeping waste blood on site too long.
Banham Poultry, now under new management from the time of the offending, had a permit from the Environment Agency to slaughter up to 67 million birds a year, more than a million every week. But believing the company had breached its permit for managing smells, investigators gave them an enforcement notice to limit or prevent odours leaving the boundary of the abattoir.
The court also heard how foul-smelling air escaped through damaged and open doors. Watery blood from poultry collected on the abattoir floor, which was prevented from draining away because of blocked drains.
The shortcomings were made worse by carcasses stored outside in the hot summer of 2020. Dead animals were kept in a trailer in sweltering conditions with no refrigeration.
The Environment Agency recorded odours 86 times outside the abattoir from the start of 2019 to September last year, ranging from faint to very strong – all of which came from the abattoir.
Sophie Cousins led the investigation for the Environment Agency and she said: “Banham Poultry failed to invest in odour-prevention. People living and working nearby were badly affected over a long period of time.
“The Environment Agency decided on prosecution after Banham missed many chances to comply with the law. We gave them time and assistance to put matters right, but the problems just mounted up.
“The site’s odour management plan, meant to control the effect of work on the community, was ‘ripped up’, according to one employee. Another member of staff wrote in an email in 2019 they were ‘embarrassed…’ and couldn’t defend the company’s poor management of the site, adding ‘we stink’.
“The Environment Agency consistently told Banham the plan either didn’t contain the necessary measures to prevent odour pollution, or procedures weren’t being followed. Banham either responded to the warnings very late or simply ignored them.”
The company pleaded guilty to failing to keep activities free from odour levels likely to cause pollution outside the abattoir between January 2019 and September 2021. Banham also admitted not complying with an enforcement notice served on it by the Environment Agency that set out steps they should have taken to limit or prevent odours leaving the site.
District judge King ruled the offences as reckless culpability. He fined Banham Poultry (2018) Ltd, of Station Road, Attleborough, £300,000 for breaching regulation 38 (2) of the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016.
He also imposed no separate penalty for a breach of regulation 38 (3) – not complying with the enforcement notice. The hearing at Chelmsford magistrates’ court also ordered Banham Poultry to pay £67,621.45 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
Find recommendations for eating out, attractions and events near you here on our sister website 2Chill
Find recommendations for dog owners and more doggy stories on our sister site Teamdogs
