THE Environment Agency says it is to continue monitoring levels of hydrogen sulphide coming from a Chorley landfill site until December.

Residents have been angry about smells at the Clayton Hall site on Dawson Lane and, after works, Environment chiefs said it has reduced.

A statement read: “There has also been a decrease in the number of reports received by our incident hotline. We understand that weather conditions greatly affect the impact of the odour and that cooler conditions with lower wind speed creates the most impact. The reduction in complaints and odours may partly be due to recent higher wind speeds. We will continue to spot-monitor for hydrogen sulphide overnight until the end of April.

“If the current trend of reducing odour strength, frequency and duration continues, we are aiming to move to forecast-led monitoring overnight at the start of May. If there are recorded episodes of strong odour, high readings and increased impacts we will review our spot-monitoring regime again. We will maintain our fixed monitoring station at the Clayton Hall Community Centre though to December 2018.”

Environment Agency chiefs say that another enforcement notice has been served on Blackburn-based operators, Quercia.

The statement said: “Quercia is undertaking further works to cover an additional area of the landfill.

“This is part of the continued improvement works that they will need to complete over the coming weeks and months. These works will put in place better control and management of landfill gas.

“Our landfill gas, regulatory and engineering specialists were on site on April 18 review ongoing works and to review progress on site.

“At each visit, they monitor Quercia’s progress against the improvements required as a result of the landfill gas review at the site.

“We can confirm that Quercia has complied with the enforcement notice that we served on them on March 27. The purpose of that notice was for the operator to maximise the amount of gas extracted by the existing site infrastructure and to provide a plan of how they will improve landfill gas management at the site.”

A spokesman for Quercia said: “The major engineering works to install a temporary plastic cap and seal an area of approximately 8600sqm was completed earlier this month. This work also saw the installation of a network of additional landfill gas collection lines under the cap to capture the surface emissions. This work has significantly reduced the odour and as a result we were able to identify a much smaller area in the southeast corner of the site that was still emitting an odour and would require capping. Work to cap this 50m wide section on the steep flank in the south eastern edge of the site is progressing well and will be completed this week.”