A recycling company’s plan to build a giant slurry lagoon has caused a stink with residents.

Agrivert plans to create the pool on land between Yarnton and Cassington.

Cherwell District Council has granted planning permission for the scheme, although Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has the final say as it is in a green belt area.

Agrivert says it needs the facility, which would measure 172 metres by 60 metres, to store residue — known as digestate — left over from electricity produced by the food waste it collects from Oxfordshire households.

But villagers, who formed a liaison committee, have queried why the company did not apply for the lagoon, which would be bigger than two football pitches, before its £9m digester came into operation in October last year.

The residue can be used as slurry and villagers suggested Agrivert may have had difficulty selling it to farmers, a claim rejected by the company.

Yarnton resident Simon Eaton said: “We were not at all against the digester when it was first suggested. But we understood then that the digestate would be sold to farmers and there would be no storage of it on the site.”

Michael Gibbard, Yarnton resident and a parish councillor, as well as a Cherwell District and county councillor, said: “At one stage Agrivert definitely said they needed the lagoon because they couldn’t move the digestate quickly enough to farmers.”

But Agrivert commercial director Harry Waters denied the company was having trouble selling the slurry. He said: “There is sufficient demand for our digestate from farmers.”

However, Mr Gibbard added: “So why do they need a slurry lagoon to store it? Why was permission not sought in the original application?”

A meeting of company representatives, villagers and staff from the Environment Agency, was being held last night.

Agrivert operates the digester between the A40 Oxford-Witney road and the Cotswold Line railway.

After distilling food waste, it burns off the resulting methane to produce electricity, which it then sells to the National Grid.

The firm says the digester produces enough electricity to power 4,000 homes, and the cost to council tax payers is half that of dumping food waste in landfill.

Mr Waters said: “We need a slurry lagoon because we now want to store it on our own farm, which we have on long-term lease, rather than deliver it to farmers’ lagoons as we originally planned.”

A letter from agricultural contractor RC Baker, of Barford St Michael, which farms 10,000 acres in Oxfordshire, supported the quality of the slurry.

Managing director Charles Baker wrote: “Over the last year we have been trialling the digestate. We are very impressed with the field trials which have resulted in impressive crop yields.

“We have no doubt there is a strong demand for the quality product which is being produced.”

Hayley Willoughby, a spokesman for the Environment Agency, said it had granted the site an environmental permit to operate.

She added: “This contains controls on protecting the environment from pollution, including odour and health risks.

“At this stage we do not have any reason to believe the lagoon storage area will pose a risk to human health.”