A ROW has broken out over plans to build a bigger incinerator for burning animal carcasses in the tiny village of Charltons, near Guisborough.

Some residents say the furnace would cause excessive noise, smell and traffic.

But Ted and Jean Noddings, who run the horse and cattle slaughterers J E Noddings & Son, say they have no choice if their business - which has been in the village since the 1920s - is to survive.

The Noddings' application for the eight square metre incinerator - which will be twice as big as the existing one - is due to go before the planning committee of the North Yorks National Park Authority on Thursday.

Objectors have already collected more than a hundred signatures opposing the scheme. In a letter to the authority, resident Patricia Lucas says people are worried about truckloads of carcasses coming into the village at all hours of day and night.

"The large number of carcasses arriving on the site, resulting from the increase in business, will certainly give rise to highly unpleasant smells and clouds of flies."

The letter says the taller chimney would be 'a veritable blot on the National Park landscape, impossible to screen.'

MP Ashok Kumar has also voiced concern about the scheme.

"There are probably far better places for a plant of this kind in an existing industrial area rather than next to a small village," he said.

Not all villagers are opposed to the scheme.

Alfred Edwards said: "I'm not bothered at all. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference."

Another villager said Charltons was split between those who supported the Noddings and those who objected to the furnace.

"Many of us have not signed the petition," she said. "It's his livelihood when it comes to it. I don't think it will be that bad."

Mr Noddings said new legislation meant he was no longer able to dissect animals before burning them, so a bigger incinerator that could take whole carcasses was necessary.

"It's going to make no difference to the number of carcasses coming to the site. We are not entrepreneurs and we are not trying to make our business any bigger."

His wife added: "We are doing no harm, we are just trying to survive in our business."