VILLAGERS yesterday complained after waking up to a “nauseating smell” coming from a nearby waste site.

FCC Environment, which runs the Sutton Courtenay landfill site, said it identified the compost odour in the Harwell Road area of the village in the morning and stopped its operations.

But villager Pauline Wilson said: “Residents have woken up to a nauseating smell, which permeates houses.

“Unfortunately this is a common occurrence, which the company does not seem at all interested in addressing.”

The Environment Agency received 10 calls from residents complaining of the smell. It sent out inspectors, but by 10.30am FCC Environment had dealt with the problem.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “We are going to work with them to try to make it not happen again.”

Mike Snell, head of external affairs at FCC, said: “We have made significant investments to odour control systems.

“In the last year at our Sutton Courtenay site we have installed a full perimeter odour neutralising system and made other operational improvements.”