Charlie gave an in-depth overview of this meeting together with background history of Mayfield Farm. Prior to the year 2000 Mayfield farm was operated as a pig farm. However following the outbreak of foot and mouth this activity was discontinued. During the years 2000-2014 Mayfield Farm operated as an “animal by-product Business”. From 2014 to current times Mayfield farm’s business centred on “Fallen Stock”. Within this business Mayfield farm is used as a transit stop for large vehicles carrying dead animals from a base in Cornwall to a base in Bradford where they are processed. Lorries entering Mayfield Farm rest on site for a number of hours to allow drives to rest or to allow for a change in drivers. At the meeting Tony Robbins who represented Mayfield farm also stated that there is another part to his business, which meant additional lorries were entering Mayfield farm and this was involved in some type of “Processing Industry”.
Tony Robbins has also sub-let part of Mayfield farm premises to another business involved in the transport and processing of poultry. The representative for this business was also at the meeting, a Mr Mohammed Rizwan. Mr Rizwan informed people at the BDC meeting that the poultry came into the site either in a frozen or refrigerated bins and it was established that unloading and transferring of bins carrying the chicken parts were probably the cause of the noise.
At the meeting Tony Robbins said that in an effort to reduce noise and smells the trailers on the lorries would be changed from plastic top trailers to metal topped trailers, which should help reduce smell. This change is still in progress.
Tony Robbins also informed group that since October 2016 he has stopped some aspects of his business.
Mr Ken Banks opened this agenda item by giving a brief resume of the history/works of this piece of land from the new ownership in 2015 till present time expressing his concerns that no authority appears to be taking any of the issues raised seriously. Since the land was acquired in 2015 there has been quite major ground works carried out including the widening of the entrance to the property and creating a wider hard core drive way around the property. In the process of doing this the highway verge has been destroyed, the style to the public right of way has been moved and land belonging to Mr Ken Banks has been encroached upon. In addition to this large sections of hedgerows have been taken out which must be detrimental to the wild life in this area. The property used to have two separate lakes but land has been removed between the two, developing the ponds into one large lake area, the property has had timber buildings erected on it, there is currently an eight berth caravan on site, which the owner stated, was for workers helping with the sheep that were on there. This caravan was supposed to have been removed two weeks ago at the request of BDC officers, but is still there. There has been a very large marquee on there at one time, which has been blown over causing overhead electric wires to come down.
An order by BDC to stop all work whilst a review was undertaken by them was ordered last year but work is believed to be still carrying on. Currently the owner has put in retrospective planning permission of works carried out and is applying for a licence to operate a fish rearing farm.
Adrian informed the HRA that Alvechurch Parish Council had recommended that the retrospective planning permission submitted to BDC should be refused. Charlie also stated that instead of the decision of the application being decided by the planning officers it would now be decided by a planning committee of BDC Councillors.
This foot path too has progressively become narrower with the spreading of grass from the verge over the footpath making it extremely difficult to walk on, especially if pushing a push chair or wheel chair.
Following another meeting between your District Councillor (Charlie Hotham) and your Parish Councillor(Adrian Smith) and the (Alvechurch Parish Council Chairman) Andy Humphries with Worcestershire Regulatory Services(WRS) and The Animal Plant and Health Authority(APHA) at Kidderminster yesterday Helen Groves(WRS) has re- affirmed this procedure document below to assist residents in how to complain when further offensive smells wash over Hopwood. Their main advice being to get registrationn numbers of the offending lorries that are leaking (difficult I know). No legislation exists about a lorry that "just"smells ....but they are not supposed to leak onto the highway, that can be prosecuted with the correct evidence !
. Please note evidence provided by you is essential to investigate any odour allegation made. WRS assue Charlie Hotham and Myself that they are randomly visiting the area .
A judgement will then be made on whether the odour may constitute a statutory nuisance taking into account how significant the odour is in terms of it’s intensity, offensiveness, the time of day, duration, frequency etc. and whether targeted monitoring can be organised to gather further evidence to take formal action. Please note that the nature of the business at Mayfield Farm is such that, as some of the material is not required by law to be refrigerated, there will be a degree of odour from the operation at times, particularly during warm weather and also whilst the material is in transit on the highway.
Leakage of animal by-product material on the road
This can be investigated by the Animal Plant and Health Agency (APHA) who approve and routinely inspect sites that are storing or handling animal by-products, as part of this approval the vehicles used to transport the material must be leak proof:
To formally report vehicles that are leaking material on the road, you must provide the following information: the registration of the vehicle, the date and time, the location and a photograph (if possible) and email to
