A SIMPLE journey for the weekly shop in Brightlinsea is a daunting task for its fed-up residents – and it's not just because of rising supermarket prices.
In fact, it is mainly down to a mysterious foul smell that has plagued the pretty Essex seaside town for years on end.
Famed for its long rows of beach huts, a small port and an annual sailing event, the area has been dealing with an awful "eye-burning" stench that has locals with red faces and feeling physically sick.
When The Sun visited on a mild afternoon, the pong was evident, although residents were quick to point out it gets much, much worse – to the point where those living near its epicentre have to close their windows even in the baking hot summer months.
Although they have tried on numerous occasions to get the deplorable scent investigated, they say their calls have fallen on deaf ears.
And while many here say they have no clue where the smell comes from, several believe it is not so mysterious.
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A number of them pointed to the Dunmow Group, a skip hire and waste disposal firm located behind a Co-Op supermarket on Samsons Road, just a few minutes' drive from the town centre.
'Physically sick'
Eve, a pensioner in her mid-60s, tells us: "It's really bad. It burns your throat and your nose. Your eyes run and you get a headache.
"[It makes] you feel physically sick when it's really bad. And it just comes and goes. It needs sorting but I think it is definitely a chemical smell because of the burning.
"I don't know where it's coming from. You'd have to think it's from [points to Dunmow] but I'm wondering if it's something to do with our sewage system as well.
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"Maybe the place is so built up they haven't improved the drainage. There have been loads of complaints about it. I first noticed it about two and a half years ago and I went to lock my gate up thinking 'What's that smell?' and I actually came in and heaved.
"When it's so bad I can't even use my back garden and if you come up here when it's happening, you'd just want to get in and out. In fact, if you didn't have to buy something, you'd get back in the car. It is that bad."
Eve's daughter Catherine, 46, who does not live in the area but often drives 15 minutes to visit her mum, agrees the odour is so rank that it makes her feel sick.
She says: "I notice it when I come over in the car just up the road from Great Bromley. As soon as I get out of the car, my eyes have been streaming and it's felt like something has been thrown in my face.
"I've gone round my mum's and I've sat there and [my eyes] have been so painful and I've told her that I have to go. My eyes were red and it felt like I was breathing something in and I just felt really dizzy and ill.
"And that's happened maybe four or five times. When I come to see my mum sometimes, I notice that her face is really bad. Whatever it is, it needs sorting out. It's definitely chemical because you can taste it and feel it in your eyes.
"I presume someone is burning something or it's a big factory – I don't know but I think the locals have their own idea about where it's coming from. The evidence would support that.
"Whoever is doing it, it needs to stop because it must be affecting people, especially people with asthma, people with poor health or people recovering from certain types of cancer."
Although Catherine would like to live closer to her mum, she refuses to move closer to the area until the problem is dealt with as she would not want to put her family through "a situation like that."
She believes an investigation that results in the party responsible for the smell being held responsible must be conducted.
"People need to be held accountable because if it's doing this to us, what about the environment, nature and other animals?" she asks.
"It's got to be affecting them also and any crops that are growing. I don't know where it is coming from but whatever it is, it will be affecting everything and everyone.
"Whoever it is needs to hold their hand up and say sorry, we've got it wrong and this is how we are going to put it right."
'It's revolting'
Although Sam Eagling, 23, lives on the other side of Brightlinsea -where house prices average £293,941, according to Rightmove – he says there is no escape from the "revolting" stench.
"It's been going on for years now and there are endless groups on Facebook with people complaining all the time," he says.
"You come up here sometimes to go to the shop and the smell is so bad that you don't even want to get out of the car. You can smell it driving up. And I know people up here who have been feeling light-headed from it. It's so unnatural.
"The smell is so, so bad. There's never been any real explanation. There have been rumours going around that every time someone goes up to the place that's making the smell, it all very quickly gets silenced and they get pushed to the side.
"We are a little town so no one takes notice. If this was happening in Colchester or Chelmsford – but in Brightlinsea, they don't really care. They can get away with whatever they want."
Describing the stench, he says: "The smell is a mix of egg, and manure, and is one of the worst things I've ever smelt. It's revolting."
Like Catherine, Sam believes that those responsible must be held accountable and recalls a period last year where the smell disappeared after an investigation – only to return a short while later.
He explains: "Sort the smell out first. In the past, they claimed to have gotten it sorted. Everyone left and it came back. There was this sort of big investigation and the investigators left because it was sorted.
"But then it came back again. Same smell, and from the same place."
Another resident, David Lewis, 72, says he has to brace himself for the smell each time he visits the Co-Op for his weekly shopping.
The pensioner says: "It smells like rotten vegetables. It's quite disgusting. And sometimes, it is very very strong."
Gillian Gianni, 72, who has lived in the area for the past eight years and like most people is frustrated with the rancid smell, says: "It's absolutely horrible. It's like a farmer's muck spreading on the fields.
"It's just dreadful and it comes to our end of town. It's awful. And I think it's probably quite unhealthy as well. If they could just get to the bottom of it and find out what's going on.
"It's been happening for a few years and when it really kicks off, it's diabolical. People always complain and they say they're looking into it. We are fed up and it's not nice."
'Infrequent smell'
Ric Morgan, the mayor of Brightlinsea, told The Sun: "The council takes the complaints of residents extremely seriously and has alerted all the main organisations to investigate and they certainly have done lots of investigating.
"But this smell does only come infrequently. It pops up in different areas of the town and is not always local to one area. It's not very easy to work out where it comes from."
When asked about residents pointing to the waste management company, the mayor said: "I wouldn't want to pinpoint any one person or firm or a group of people. That wouldn't be fair.
"What we need is clear evidence and that unfortunately is not in front of us although we are still trying to collect data."
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The Sun reached out to the Dunmow Group for comment but did not get a response as at the time of publishing.
Tendring District Council, where Brightlinsea falls under, recently said that although the origins of the smell "remains unknown", it will "continue working with our partners to locate and then address the issue."
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