Agenda item

The Chair announced that this item of business would be moved forward on the agenda as a number of residents had come to the meeting specifically for the discussion on the Burrows Chimney.

Daniel Clifford, Environmental Health Officer, and Simon Pollard, Pollution Control Officer were present from Leicester City Council.  Mr Bob Vesey and Mr Vic Dattani, Accountant were also present as representatives from Euro Dyers.

Daniel gave a brief presentation on Nuisance Law and explained that the City Council dealt with issues relating to statutory nuisance. Local Authorities had the powers to inspect and take enforcement action by issuing an abatement notice. If there was a breach of the abatement notice, the Local Authority could instigate criminal proceedings. Individuals also had a right to take action against statutory nuisance.

Simon then explained that the previous owners of the factory had been served with an abatement notice in 2009 and in response they had installed some new equipment but shortly afterwards the company had changed ownership which had invalidated the abatement notice. This meant that the Council had to start the process again.

A new abatement notice had been served in May 2010 and since then visits had been made to the premises but a further nuisance had not been witnessed. Simon added that this did not mean that there was not an odour because even with the best technology, it was extremely difficult to totally eliminate all odours.

Simon added that the fact that the Pollution Control Officers had not witnessed a nuisance, did not mean that a nuisance did not exist and they were still actively working with the company.  Members of the public were encouraged to contact the Council if there were further problems. Their team did not operate an out of hours service although staff in a different section did work outside office hours. He explained that there had been a reduction in the complaints that had been received and they were aware that Euro Dyers were working to eliminate the problems.

Members of the community made the following comments:

·         We have been reporting these problems since 2003.

·         We would like you to operate a 24 hour service.

·         People feel that there is no point in contacting the council to complain because no action is taken.

·         There were people with medical problems whose conditions were made worse by the smell from the factory.

·         People would like to know what exactly was coming out of the chimney and whether there was any evidence of health problems.  Officers responded that the chimney was very high and as far as they knew, the dispersion was not dangerous.  A member of the public commented that the chimney was not designed for the purpose for which it was used.

Mr Dattani apologised for the problems and explained that they had hired a consultant to help find solutions to the problem. To date they had spent £100,000 and Mr Dattani promised on behalf of the company that they would make every effort to resolve the issues.

Mr Bob Vesey, the consultant then addressed the meeting and explained that they had drawn up a plan to include the following steps:

·         To impose a regular cleaning regime to keep the inside of the ducting clean; a cleaning record would be kept which would be audited.

·         To close off broken skylights and to seal ducting leaks.

·         To close off old exhaust fans; these were blowing outside.

·         To put in measures to increase the exhaust velocity at the top of the stack. This would enable air to be dispersed higher.

Mr Vesey explained that this was stage one of the plan and Mr Dattani had assured him that this would be completed by the middle of August.  Further steps could be taken if the steps taken in stage one did not resolve the problem.

The Chair suggested that an update on this item should be brought to the next Aylestone Community Meeting.