A mystery surrounds the source of a bad smell which hit Bradford city centre yesterday morning.

Workers began to turn up their noses at the rotten odour around 10am as the weather began to hot up.

But environmental health officers for Bradford Council were unable to locate the source of the stench, despite noticing it themselves around their Jacob’s Well offices.

Nearby Waddingtons, which processes food and animal by-product waste, was ruled out as the source, as it was not operating.

And it is now believed that it was down to a passing lorry.

A spokesman for the Council, said yesterday: “We haven’t had any complaints from the public about bad smells but we smelt a strong whiff for about five minutes ourselves this morning.

“I went out at the time and walked around the town centre to the bottom of Leeds Road and then around midday walked around the vicinity of the courts but could not detect anything of note.

“We know Waddingtons is not operating today so we suspect it was a passing vehicle, over which we have no jurisdiction.”

What you thought

“It’s just a horrid smell, awful. I think it’s the heat that makes it worse but there’s definitely something wrong. May be they need to clean out the drains or something.” Sara Foulds, 30, unemployed of Heaton. “It happens every summer. It wouldn’t make a good impression on anyone coming to Bradford for the first time. It’d put them off strauight away. It’s like a bad food smell.” Neil Hickey, 51,labourer of Tyersal.

  • Read the full story Tuesday’s T&A