Farm's bid for open air composting

1:46pm Thursday 1st May 2008

Comments (1)   Have your say »

A FARMING family who have been in Old Sodbury for more than two decades say they are being persecuted by villagers over a composting site.

Father-and-son team Michael and Simon Mitchell, who run Southcroft Farm close to the A46, are fed up with a four-year battle with residents.

Simon Mitchell is in charge of the composting facility, which is lying dormant until planning permission can be agreed with South Gloucestershire Council, where he turns recycled waste into fertiliser and spreads it on the family farm next door, a site near Bath and another in Hawkesbury Upton.

Protesters say the smell from the facility is unbearable and it is dangerously close to Old Sodbury Primary School, as bio-aerosols are released into the air.

However, Mr Mitchell told the Gazette an independent scientist had carried out numerous tests and passed the farm every time.

He said: "We just don't know why people in the village are so opposed to us.

"We have always said people are welcome to have a look around the site and we do not want to antagonise anyone.

"We have many friends in the village and this is where I grew up.

"Ninety per cent of the time the wind blows in a south-westerly direction, which means any smell doesn't go in the direction of the village and we have said many times we will stop operations when the wind blows the other way."

Operations were forced to halt at the site in 2007 when waste from the newly established twin-bin scheme in South Gloucestershire was contaminated and created offensive smells.

"We found all sorts in the waste SITA delivered, including a chopped up motorbike," said Mr Mitchell.

"We knew things weren't right and we admitted that, which is why we stopped operating."

The Mitchells are now bidding for planning permission to restart open-air composting for a trial two-year period and hope to take waste from within South Gloucestershire.

"We believe we have addressed the problems and we would like to prove we can do it," added Mr Mitchell.

"The only other facilities in the whole of South Gloucestershire are community composting sites but if we can take green waste here we can cut down on the carbon footprint.

"We are being persecuted by the village. Should we have our business ruined for helping the council when it was starting up a new scheme?"

A site inspection meeting was held at the composting site last Friday and the council's planning committee will decide on the issue at a meeting yet to be announced.