NOISY and smelly industrial sites across Oxfordshire could have been left to their own devices for too long.

Oxfordshire County Council aims to inspect quarries and rubbish dumps across the county at least once a year.

Some sites are supposed to have more than one visit if the council thinks they are at a high risk of causing a nuisance to people who live in towns or villages nearby.

According to a report presented to OCC’s planning and regulation committee yesterday, some of the sites were not visited at all between April 1 and October 31.

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Out of a total of 115 sites across the county, 24 have not been visited since the start of the financial year.

According to a report to the committee, the council aims to visit them all at least once before the end of March 2020.

Councillors expressed concerns that some of the sites were going unchecked, and problems may have occurred in the local area due to this.

Council officers explained they were working as hard as they could to carry out their duties, but several issues meant there were not enough staff on the team which monitored Oxfordshire's quarries and landfill sites.

These reasons included a key member of the team having passed away, and recruitment issues in the south of the county.

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Oxfordshire County Hall.

The council divides the quarries, landfill sites and other similar schemes by their district council areas.

In Cherwell, five of the sites had not been visited by October 31.

In West Oxfordshire, it was four; South Oxfordshire, six, and in Vale of White Horse nine had not been visited.

The council is not obliged to carry out the visits by law, but sets its own targets.

The report said the council regularly visits quarries and landfill sites with the aim of avoiding 'problems developing' and promoting good practice.

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In a related report, councillors were told what enforcement action had been taken to punish sites which had not heeded warnings from the council.

This included, for example, a complaint of 'exceedingly loud noises during working hours' at Shellingford Quarry in the Vale.

The council visited the area and found the noise was not above permitted levels after testing.