A LEADING craft furniture maker and tourist attraction in a village “inundated with flies and an intolerable stench” linked to pig farming has has been told it must accept a shed to store the animals’ muck just yards from its premises.

Robert Thompson Craftsmen and the Mouseman Visitor Centre was among objectors to a scheme to build a 36m by 12m covered muck store close to the homes and businesses in Kilburn, which also attracts tourists due to the nearby White Horse hillside landmark.

A meeting of the North York Moors National Park Authority’s planning committee was told the 2,000 pigs on the farm produced “significant quantities of manure”, and if the muck was stored under cover it would cut smell and fly issues.

A spokesman for applicant Henry Thompson, of Church Farm, said manure stored outside captured rainfall and had the potential to create a pollution risk to nearby watercourses and the scheme had been backed by the Environment Agency and Natural England.

Speaking for the Mouseman Visitor Centre, resident Pippa Cartwright told members the smell and odour issue was “just not conducive to village life or the tourism industry”. She said: “We appreciate that Kilburn is a rural village and agriculture is at the heart of the area. However, Kilburn is also a major tourist destination in the North York Moors National Park with the famous White Horse and the Mouseman furniture makers visitor centre and cafe, which employs more than 40 staff and attracts more than 20,000 visitors a year.”

In a letter of objection, another resident stated: “We are inundated with flies, and the smell from the sheds is intolerable. A covered manure store is not going to reduce the stench that currently pervades the village on a daily basis.”

Planning officers said planning conditions including fly and manure management plans would be imposed and the use of the store to house pigs would be forbidden.

The committee’s chairman, farmer David Hugill, and other members said they were concerned about the ability to enforce the prohibition of pigs from the proposed building. Passing the scheme, members said building a covered store “would make the  best of a bad job of having a pig farm in the village”.