Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council has agreed to up its game in the battle to resolve the ongoing problem of foul odours on the east side of Okehampton which are believed to originate from the nearby pet food factory, Forthglade.

At the last council meeting (September 5), councillors bemoaned the fact that they had yet to see the factory make any headway in fixing the problem despite repeated requests and agreed to offer the factory one final warning before reporting the problem to the environmental health team at the borough council.

Cllr Jan Goffey, said: “It’ll show that we mean business. We’ll give them due warning but that is the step we will take. [The smell] is a nuisance.”

Cllr Maria Cooper also suggested that businesses affected by the smell write to the factory to add more weight to the council’s complaint.

It was also suggested that businesses log any instances of the bad smell, making note of the date and time, so that an accurate record is kept that can then be presented to the factory.

Councillors’ frustration at the lack of action from Forthglade to put an end to the problem smells has meant that they have now resolved to write to the factory asking them to resolve - or inform them of plans to resolve - the problem within two weeks before they inform the borough council’s environmental health team of the problem.

The decision to take a stronger stance has come as the council reaches the end of its tether in the battle to get to the bottom of the “rancid” smells which residents on the east side of town have complained about for many years.

At the meeting, councillors started to raise concerns that the factory seemed to “be fobbing us off” and that they were “not getting anywhere” despite continued reassurances from Forthglade that the company is investigating the source of the smell and putting measures in place to resolve the issue.

In response to these concerns, Forthglade said: “We are working closely with the parish council to mitigate concerns from local residents. We have taken several actions to reduce the odour emitted including reducing the amount of waste created at the factory, increasing the frequency of waste disposal to daily during summer months, and changing the timing of the tanker collection to 6am following instruction from the council.

 “We continue to maintain regular contact with the council and will be meeting with them to discuss longer term proposals to further reduce any odour emitted from Forthglade’s factory.”

West Devon’s environmental health team investigates a wide range of health and wellbeing issues in the environment including nuisance noise, bad odours, air quality, contaminated land and flooding.

For more information or to report a problem visit www.westdevon.gov.uk/environmental-health.