PARENTS living near a mass foot-and-mouth burial site were forced to lock their children indoors as the putrid smell of rotting flesh enveloped their homes.

Many residents living in Tow Law, say slight rain over the weekend caused flooding at the controversial Inkerman site, leaving the town engulfed with the sickening stench.

But a MAFF spokesperson denied claims that an emergency pump had to be installed to stop contaminated water flooding from the site.

Protestors, who have been camped outside the entrance to the site since it was opened, said that residents were terrified that fumes wafting into the streets were toxic.

Gary White and his wife Elizabeth told how their daughter Paige, eight, and her friends became ill from the smell. Mr White said: "The kids were out playing in the back street and my wife took them out an ice cream and they were nearly throwing up.

"I took the man from the Environment Agency out to where the kids were playing and the smell wasn't there at first and then it just came over and he was nearly sick.''

Reassurances were given this week by a MAFF spokesperson who said the ministry and Wear Valley District Council had been monitoring the site.

She said: "We have found that the gas levels are below the level of determination. They are one part per million.''

New deodorising heavy plant machinery was due to be taken to the site on Tuesday to rid the town of the stench.

She said that a series of lagoons would be built on the site to deal with the surface water from there and the nearby fells.

"We confirm that as part of on-going works and maintenance on the site a small section on one of the trenches was opened and then closed in order to extract leachate liquid that comes off as the animals decompose." Contractors have already started work on the building of the lagoons under strict guidelines set by the Environmental Agency and contractors are already undertaking this work.

Residents took their protests against the site to the doorstep of Harry Banks, head of HJ Banks, the company which sold the site to Maff on Sunday.

Outside the security gates of the house, near High Grange, campaigners sat and picnicked for about an hour.

The move came a day after members of the group travelled to Newcastle, where they protested at Grey's Monument