This is a call for a collaborative effort to encourage those accountable to take responsibility and bring final closure to the ongoing pollution caused by Davidstow Creamery’s Water Processing Facility.

Brief background

Davidstow Creamery (Cathedral City and Davidstow cheese, Clover dairy spread, Country Life butter and Frylight cooking spray), previously Dairy Crest now owned by multi-national company Saputo, is continuing its seemingly unstoppable destruction of our Cornish Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) which is home to over 600 residents and precious native wildlife that have been forced to endure toxic H2S emissions, noise and water pollution for almost a decade.

We are aware that the Environment Agency recently took Dairy Crest to the Crown Court where they were prosecuted for 21 heinous crimes against the environment for which a questionably low fine was issued. Yes, the highest fine to date - but, small change for a company with annual Net earnings totalling $139 million.

Current State of affairs

Shockingly, Environment Agency (EA) Compliance Assessment Reports (CARs) filed post-conviction over the past 18 months continue to indicate significant incidences of permit breaches which are also reported almost daily by frustrated residents. Conversations with the EA reveal an unwillingness to enforce compliance to expedite meaningful change.

Surely 10 years is long enough for a company of this size/worth to install simple pollution mitigation measures in line with its own Environmental Policy and ‘Saputo Promise’?

Meanwhile a community and the environment is on its knees...

Odour
Smelly odour of rotten eggs carrying deadly H2S ‘sewer gas’ regularly fills our homes. Exposure to Hydrogen Sulphide causes us eye and respiratory irritation, dizziness, headaches, weakness, irritability, insomnia and stomach upset. We are getting ill, and our children are prevented from playing outside as we are held prisoner in our own homes.

Noise
We also continue to report unbearable noise disturbances daily which are driving some locals to thoughts of suicide. Anthropogenic (man-made) noise is showing up in a burgeoning number of studies published by Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), to have a devastating impact on both human well-being and biodiversity levels in surrounding habitat.

Residents are being forced to move away, hospitality businesses are forced to close, incomes are being lost and people (locals and visitors) are falling ill.

Saputo's response

Flying in the face of the ‘Saputo Promise’ to ‘safeguard the environment’, Saputo’s Davidstow Creamery Waste Treatment Plant (WTF) continues to blatantly breach compliance obligations with a shameful arrogance, apathy and utter lack of accountability toward the inhabitants with whom it shares the surrounding landscape. Saputo seems to have lost sight of the fact that with the privilege of profiteering from an environment comes a massive responsibility to preserve and protect it from ruin. It is also becoming increasingly apparent that Davidstow Creamery management is either incompetent at finding solutions or it has simply realised that it is far easier and more cost-effective to fob off locals with empty promises and pay the pocket-change fine once a decade rather then fix the shambles that is their understaffed, obviously unfixable Waste Treatment Facility.

Solutions

It is important to note that the goal is not permanent closure, but rather temporary shutdown until compliance can be achieved. Compliance needs to be considered as crucial criteria in a neo-liberal political climate that seems to champion rural economic growth with complete disregard for the environment, accusing anyone who stands up to expansion as being part of an anti-growth coalition. This is not the case, all we ask is that our shared planet be put before profit.

A possible short-term solution might be to keep the factory open and have its waste temporarily transported away to a fit-for-purpose off-site facility until this hazardous and unprecedented aberration can be future-proofed against future environmental disasters.

Whatever the solution, it desperately calls for expedience before it’s too late. It is up to us all to protect not only the majesty of our natural landscape, but to preserve moor biodiversity and protect the grazing rights/freedom to roam of heritage-breed sheep, cattle and wild ponies that date back to medieval times.

Possible outcomes of inaction

Permanent closure and subsequent market impact, however, will inevitably follow if the sanctity of our beautiful, peaceful, clean and quite parish continues to be threatened. One only needs to look to Africa and China to see what industrial growth without safeguard the environment looks like. Is that what we want for Cornwall?

As for the 200 employees and 300 farmers, their potential loss of income is totally in the hands of complicit local government, the EA and this profiteering multinational dairy giant who have failed us all. Inevitable redundancies will happen as a direct result of Saputo thinking they are above the law by choosing to not meet compliance obligations that have been designed to reduce environmental impact.

We can only implore that Saputo honours its employees and suppliers with adequate remuneration and support during impending downtime that is worthy of their loyal service over the years.

Conclusion

Local residents are quite frankly fed-up with being guilted and threatened into silence as if the task of protecting farmers, suppliers and workers is our duty alone - requiring us to silently witness and endure unimaginable stink and noise in our homes. We will no longer suffer and play passive victims as this AONB is destroyed for the profits of a multi billion pound industry. We are beyond fed up with the scape-coating, back-handers, bully tactics, deception and dodgy reporting that continues to this day. We are determined to save our homes, livelihoods, health and beloved Cornwall from a certain environmental ruin and will do everything in our power to do so.

Action plan

My own small but potent and evidently necessary action plan has come about out of pure frustration with the complicit/accountable bodies not acting boldly enough to affect the sea change required to end this madness. My plan will be shared and open to all who want to join and be part of positive environmental actions.

* A ground level campaign designed to encourage locals to anonymously report odour/noise nuisance to the UK Health Security Agency and Environment Agency.

* Spot fines / prosecution / permit withdrawal by the Environment Agency

* An Publicity Campaign spanning an influencer-led Social media storm, radio interviews, podcast engagement, a televised Netflix/BBC Panarama/Channel 4 documentary and syndicated press coverage

* Organised Protest/product boycott in collaboration with Green Peace etc, Animal Rebellion, Project Calf, Go Vegan and The United Kingdom Noise Association (UKNA) to mention a few.

* An initiative to champion and fund small batch Cornish artisan cheese producers to help fill the ensuing void in milk demand, employ locals and celebrate Cornish heritage whilst both reducing carbon footprint and encouraging a sustainable clean, circular economy.

* Enforced protection of the Cornish soundscape with the support of Natural Britain, National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA) and the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE)

* Formal request to have Royal Warrant revoked. I can’t see King Charles III endorsing an undeserving company ruining his beloved Duchy in his environmental clean-up mission.

* Appeal for a formal apology + community compensation

Please get in touch with ideas/actions to expedite the work needed to end this environmental atrocity.