Environmental health officers acting on scores of complaints from residents forced indoors by the stench called at farms and businesses in the area - but found nothing out of the ordinary. Many callers likened the pungent smell to something being burned.

"Our investigations have only revealed muck-spreading and crop-spraying," said a council spokesman.

"But we have found no evidence of incineration."

But the spokesman pointed out that if the smell had been traced to muck-spreading or crop-spraying then they would have been powerless to act.

"Muck-spreading and crop-spraying are a feature of the countryside," said the spokesman.

"And we have had no complaints since then."

Mike Carr column

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.