The UK's smelliest town: We have to keep plug in our baths and can't go in our gardens due to "bad egg" odour

People living in the UK’s smelliest town say they feel like they are being “gassed” despite waste deliveries to a nearby landfill site being halted.

Locals say the fumes from the waste site leave a foul odour of "bad eggs", making them ill. More than 1,000 complaints about the smell wafting into peoples’ homes are made every month. Locals are now demanding the Environment Agency investigate the smells which are caused by the release of hydrogen sulphide gas.

The reek from Walley’s Quarry, located on the edge of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, was so bad waste deliveries were suspended in April.

Mum-of-two Audrey Young, 48, who lives a mile away from the site, said: “It’s like you’re being gassed in your own home. We’re having to keep our plugs in the bath and sink and keep the toilet seat down. We can’t go into our gardens in the summer. As well as that we can’t invite people to our homes. We get embarrassed. It’s mortifying.”

Simmo Burgess, 45, who lives in nearby Knutton, joined a campaign group on the issue called Stop the Stink in 2019.

He said: “The gases from the landfill site have been proven to be consistently above WHO guidelines. The whole community suffers almost daily breathing in toxic fumes. No one is listening to the complaints.”

A spokesperson for Walley’s Quarry said the site was “stringently regulated by the Environment Agency to ensure the onsite activities do not cause harm to human health or the environment.”

They added that the site “continually inspected the waste deliveries and activities on the landfill to ensure that odour risks are managed, minimised and eradicated.”