The Environment Agency is taking enforcement action to make a waste plant in Halstead clean up its act.

Since September 2014, the government department has received 323 complaints about odour and noise against Tamar Energy’s anaerobic digestion plant, in the Bluebridge Estate, Halstead.

Complaints are counted separately even if they are made by the same person about the same issue.

The plant became fully operational in July last year.

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “As the regulator, we have been closely monitoring the site and working with the company since it became operational last July to ensure the conditions of its permit are being met.

“On July 21 this year, we served an enforcement notice on the site as the company was failing to comply with the condition on its permit associated with odour.

“The notice requires the site operator to implement appropriate measures to address the issue before August 19.

“There will then be a two week period following this date to demonstrate the effectiveness of the changes and we will review the situation again after that time.”

Jon Andrews, Halstead plant manager at Tamar Energy, said: “We’ve been meeting and speaking with a small number of residents who live closest to our plant who’ve raised issues about odour and noise. We’ve listened carefully to them and invested a significant amount of time and resources to address their concerns.

“As part of this we’re working closely with the Environment Agency, and we’re putting additional levels of monitoring and a series of other improvements in place. We investigate every report of odour, and use the monitoring system, wind direction and site patrols to verify it could be from our plant. This work tells us that any issues have remained very localised indeed, and we are focused on resolving these."