THE stench of pigswill is affecting patients at Bolton's multi million pound General Hospital claims top surgeon Mr Richard Salem.

He says that cancer patients, already feeling sick from chemotherapy treatment, are made worse by the "intolerable" smell from a neighbouring pig farm.

While we sympathise with any patients whose lives are damaged by such a noxious smell, and with staff who have to put up with it daily, there is still a simple, inescapable fact to be considered. This problem is not new: it has been there for years.

Surprisingly for such a serious-sounding situation, it has generated only 29 complaints in the past seven years, although six of these were in the last two months. The swill manufacturer is not, however, in breach of any environmental regulation and so the Council is so far unable to take action although investigations continue.

Surely, before investing the millions, it would have been sensible to offer to install new machinery for the pigswill process at Mr Harry Wildman's Townley's Farm.

It is not for the Trust to threaten the existence of legitimate small businesses. And it is not the farmer's fault that the authorities put their heads in a bucket long ago rather than tackle something that was always going to cause a stink.

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