Birmingham has been named the UK’s smelliest city with an average of 50 ‘smell complaints’ made each month. Birmingham City Council received 1,916 odour complaints between January 1, 2021, and February 29, 2024, according to new FOI data.
That makes the city potentially the most pungent in the UK - with Glasgow coming in at second place with 1,420 complaints during the same period. Brummies, according to the data sent to nicotine firm Alternix, reguarly complained about the stench of ‘cheesy feet’.
This was found to be due to ‘manure spreading’ following a joint probe by the council, neighbouring authorities, UKHSA and The Environment Agency into the smell.
So that’s why most people want Reading to remain a town…
I grew up in the countryside and moved to a city.
Everything smells bad but I absolutely cannot stand the smell of manure being spread on fields. I know farmers need it, it’s part of our food production. But my god smelling that for large parts of the year was so awful