BELFAST City Council have served a Section 65 Abatement Notice to Alpha Resource Management, owners of the Mullaghglass landfill site, forcing them to take action to address the odours associated with the site.

In a statement to belfastmedia.com, a Belfast City Council spokesperson said: "Belfast City Council has had extensive involvement in investigating odour emanating from Mullaghglass Landfill Site for some time and has been working with NIEA (the licensing authority) to establish the cause.

"The Council recently issued a notice upon the site operator, Alpha Resource Management, requiring it to abate the nuisance arising from the odour pursuant to Section 65 of the Clean Neighbourhoods & Environment Act (NI) 2011.

"As formal enforcement action has now been commenced, it would be inappropriate for the Council to comment further at this time."

This comes as residents living in the area affected by the Mullaghglass Landfill odour have taken their campaign to have the site closed to Twitter.
 
The group which have been calling on the site to be closed early, have also raised a number of concerns regarding public health and the potential impact that the odour could have on them.
 
Mairead Connolly from the group said: “We set up the Twitter to continue the fight to have this landfill closed early.
 
“Following the example of residents living close to the Silverdale landfill site in Newcastle-under-Lyme, we hope that this will continue to raise awareness of our concerns and see the site closed permanently.
 
“We are hoping that this Twitter campaign will continue to raise awareness of the issue. If it wasn’t for the Andersonstown News and some of our other papers highlighting the issue then I don’t know where we would be.
 
“Residents in the Colin and Lisburn areas have been complaining of a number of health problems which we believe to be connected to the site. Myself and my son have asthma and I have been keeping a dairy of when our symptoms appear to be worsening and I can see that that appears to be when the odour is strongest.
 
“The Public Health Agency have told us that they don’t believe there are any public health implications from the site but when we compare what we are dealing with and what those in Newcastle-under-Lyme are suffering with, it is almost a mirror image.”

The Public Health Agency previously held a meeting with residents back in March which Mairead had described as “a tick-box exercise”.
 
At the time of the meeting, the PHA told the Andersonstown News that the majority of the smells coming from the site were not hazardous to health.
 
In a statement they said: “The PHA has discussed the issue at Mullaghglass landfill site with the NIEA who have advised that they will keep us updated with developments. 
 
“The majority of unpleasant smells experienced in the community are not harmful to health. Based on the information provided to the PHA, it does not consider that this odour represents an immediate threat to the physical health of the population. The PHA will continue to liaise with the NIEA on this issue.” 
 
To keep up to date with the campaign, you can follow them on Twitter.