Pupils at Fleetwood's Flakefkeet Primary School make video protest about landfill's noxious odour emissions

And the short film is already attracting national attention, with pupils and their head teacher appearing on BBC’s Morning Live programme today.

Flakefleet Primary school has a history of producing lively, light-hearted videos for their Facebook page, including a release of their own England supporter’s song in 2021 and an elaborate school ‘wedding’ to celebrate the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018.

But this time pupils at the Northfleet Avenue school, whose school choir reached the final of |Britian’s Got Talent in 2019, have made a short film with a more serious theme.

Over the past year residents in Fleetwood - and the surrounding areas - have had to put up with vile odorous emissions coming from the Jameson Road Landfill site, run by Trabswaste,

The smell, likened to rotten and believed to be caused by methane and hydrogen Sulfide fumes, enters their homes if they leave the windows open, and sometimes youngsters can't even play out because the stench is so unpleasant.

Apart from the disgusting smell, there are concerns that the fumes may be detrimental to health, with some people compaining of nosebleeds, breathing problems, sore throats and headaches. People believe the only way to stop the problems is to shut the landfill site down and campaigners and MP Lorraine Beavers - a past pupil at Flakefleet - have been campaigned against the site.

In the short video, a group of pupils explain how the emissions are affecting them and why they want it to stop - and finish by asking: “If they won’t listen to the adults, maybe they’ll listen to us.”

Headteacher Dave McPartlin spoke about what had sparked off the video.

Parents couldn’t go out

He said: “One day I came into school and I heard two of the pupils talking about this. One of them said his parents couldn't take the dog for a walk on the beach the night before, because the smell was so bad.

“I thought ‘is this what we’ve come down to, people can't even go out’.

“When I asked our Year 5 class about whether the smell was affecting them, their arms shot up and they had plenty to say - so I thought we could do a video giving them that chance.

“The adults have been trying to get something done - maybe they’ll isten to the children.

“It does worry me whether these emissions are affecting people's health. If some of them can’t even go out or open their windows, it could be affecting their mental health too.

“The Environment Agency really has a responsibility to finally sort this out.”

Transwaste say they have been taking steps to deal with the issue, while the Environmental Agency has been monitoring the situation for the past year.

But people say the emissions keep coming.

This week, in a new statement, John Neville, Area Environment Manager at the Environment Agency, said: “We understand the community’s ongoing concerns around odours from the landfill site and we continue with our increased regulatory response. This includes daily odour checks and regular site inspections.

“We have advised the operator, Transwaste, to voluntarily stop accepting landfill waste while it carries out further work to bring the odour issues under control.

“We will take appropriate enforcement action if we do not see improvements.”