A creamery which produces a whopping 400 tonnes of pizza cheese each week has been hit with numerous complaints about its "unbearable" noise and smell.
The Dairy Partners Ltd site in Aberarad, near Newcastle Emlyn, has also come under fire for building a new waste treatment plant without the necessary planning permission. Locals living near the facility, which takes in half a million litres of milk daily from nearby farms, claim it's expanding unchecked. They say the noise and smells coming from the site are affecting their well-being. The residents, who wished to remain anonymous, questioned how the effluent treatment plant was built without approval from Carmarthenshire Council and regulator Natural Resources Wales (NRW). They're also worried about a large open aeration tank on the premises.
Residents have lodged hundreds of complaints about a local site, mostly due to noise and smell. The regulator has taken action and still has concerns about flood risk at the new treatment plant. One resident told Wales Online: "We just suffer with it and we've had enough. The smell is unbearable in the summer time. It's 100% affecting our quality of life." But he stressed that nobody wanted the creamery shut down. Residents also claimed there was a "cacophony" of noise from various on-site equipment, including a siren sound when liquefied natural gas was delivered, and that this sometimes occurred at night. They said they had approached Dairy Partners with their concerns and that improvements were sometimes made, but that they were only temporary. One resident described the production site as a formerly local dairy and creamery which was now "of a different scale altogether".
Carmarthenshire Council revealed that it had advised Dairy Partners not to proceed with the construction of a new effluent treatment plant in 2019. Despite this, the company went ahead with the project, leading to an enforcement complaint. However, due to Covid lockdowns, no site visits were made at the time. Dairy Partners applied for planning permission after the completion of the new treatment plant in 2020. Three years later, the application is still pending, with NRW objecting on the grounds of flood risk.
NRW stated that the treatment plant was built and operated without the necessary environmental permit approval. However, the permit was varied in March this year to include the facility. Since 2020, NRW has issued two warning letters, a formal caution, and four non-compliance notices to Dairy Partners for permit breaches. Two of these notices are still under investigation. NRW added that the permit includes conditions related to noise and odour, with noise restrictions in place at night.
Sarah Cawood tells cancer to 'do one' as she plunges in ice bath after battle
Erin Smyth-Evans, who leads the industry and waste regulation team at NRW, said: "We issue environmental permits for businesses to carry out certain activities that have the potential to pollute or harm the environment. Where we have become aware of changes being made at Dairy Partners Ltd without our knowledge, or have received reports of suspected pollution in nearby watercourses, we have investigated and where necessary taken enforcement steps to ensure the business is operating in compliance with their permit."
Dairy Partners explained how their previous system handled waste from cheese-making. Solid waste ended up in a "sludge tank" before being emptied by road tanker while treated waste water was transferred by pipe and discharged into the River Teifi. The company had to stop these discharges due to equipment issues and concerns over water quality, leading to more tankers arriving to take the waste water away by road.
A spokesperson for Dairy Partners defended the new £2 million effluent treatment plant, stating it was one of the most technically-advanced of its kind and had helped secure the future of the site. He said: "Although we respect the planning system, if we had waited for planning to process our application the future of the dairy, along with the site near Stroud (Gloucestershire), would have been brought into question."
The spokesperson added that neighbours had been consulted before the new treatment plant was built at the Aberarad creamery, and as a result, the location of the proposed plant was moved slightly further away from those living closest to it. He explained that the aeration tank had to be open to allow compressed air to escape into the atmosphere and that independent testing had not detected an odour issue linked to it.
He also mentioned that further odour testing between 2021 and 2022 led to action being taken by the company, that NRW were "fully engaged in the process", and that Dairy Partners answered odour complaints on the same day they were made. The spokesperson concluded by saying that the company made every effort to be a good neighbour, and that the vast majority of vehicle movements were between 6am and 7pm. He said additional sound-proofing investment had been made despite a noise survey in 2020 not detecting a problem.
A spokesperson for the company said that the number of complaints and enforcement actions were due to their 24/7 operation. He also claimed that most of the complaints came from one resident. The company is confident in addressing flood risk concerns. The company has submitted a new planning application to the council. They want to replace cleaning tanks and install a concrete barrier around them. In 2017, they got approval to install a tanker unloading bay and 13 new silos. Over 100 people living near the factory have signed a petition about noise issues.
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to webhomepage@mirror.co.uk
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
