HOW would you feel if you had a 10,000-tonne mountain of stinking rubbish dumped near your home?

Spare a thought, then, for the people of Great Heck.

A huge, steaming pile of recyclable waste is being left to rot because the company responsible for maintaining it has gone bust.

The rubbish mountain has been building up for years. It was only meant to be two metres high. But locals say it is now higher than a house - and the stink is so bad it is making them feel ill.

"It is vile, it smells toxic," says villager Sarah Webster, whose six-year-old daughter once vomited 15 times in one night because of the smell. "I am really worried what we are breathing in here."

The Environment Agency says it is now investigating 'alleged waste offences' against Wagstaff TWM Ltd, which has gone into liquidation. In the meantime the Agency is monitoring the smell. And it's advice on health concerns? Discuss them with your GP.

It has been estimated that it could cost £1 million in landfill tax to dispose of the rubbish. Meanwhile, locals are left living with the stink.

There must, surely, be better ways than this of managing our rubbish? There should at least be some kind of insurance to cover the risk of a waste management company going broke.

The Environment Agency must as an urgent priority find some way of removing this rubbish quickly.

If that means spending public money now and trying to recover it later, so be it. The villagers of Great Heck have suffered enough.