Mysterious manure-like smell determined to be manure

A mysterious manure-like smell hanging over Northampton is due to manure being spread on farmers' fields on the town's outskirts. Dozens of people had taken to Facebook and Twitter this week to complain of the foul smell, which was said to have resembled manure.

And, according to Northampton Borough Council's environmental health team and the National Farmers Union, those people were right - with the direction of wind causing the smell to waft through the town. Complaints of the smell came in from areas all over Northampton as well as surrounding towns including Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough. In Northampton, the stench was experienced in the town centre, Weston Favell, Brackmills, Parklands, Spinney Hill, Lumbertubs, Ecton Brook and Kingsthorpe.



Following the reports, Northampton Borough Council's environmental health team said it is likely the smell is due to manure being spread on fields on the outskirts of the town. The process, called muck spreading, happens at the same time every year, but due to a lack of rain the smell is lingering longer than usual. It is a process often used to help crops grow in fields. As crops grow they remove nutrients, such as compounds of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, from the soil.

These crops are harvested and taken away from the fields where they were grown. If this process is repeated for a number of years the supply of nutrients in the soil is exhausted. The land becomes less fertile, so plants grow poorly and produce only a small yield. As a results farmers use fertilisers to put back into the soil the nutrients that have been removed by growing crops. And one of those methods uses manure, which is the waste material from animals such as cows.