Slurry Lagoon?!

[Alicorn0]

Found our perfect unicorn home in the countryside. Old house with a bit of land surrounded by farmers fields. Searching through local planning I’ve found a recent planning application for a slurry lagoon on the farm which would be about 600m from the house. The access road up to that field runs along one side of property.

No clue on this. Is it a ‘nope that’ll be a nightmare from smell/other considerations’ or ‘at that distance it’s a non issue’?

Any insights would be welcome. I love the house but obviously my family want to enjoy breathing in the grounds!

It's a nope.

I think it would stink

So, recently the law on how farmers must deal with their slurry has changed and all farms must have provision for storing a very high quantity of slurry now (not sure on the finer details, but that's the headline).

I am in a similar location and the farm I am a neighbour of, is one field away. They have built their slurry lagoon and it is a similar distance from me as you say this one is going to be.

Honestly I don't know it's there.
I had a walk over to go and look at it just to see what it was like. I can't actually see it from my house because of some trees.
It is shaped like the kind of temporary swimming pool some people put on the back garden, so a high sided circular container (but made of concrete).
It's about the size of a small bungalow.
I never can smell it, it's been there about two years now (I think, maybe 3).
It doesn't make a blip on my radar.

It would be a fantastic place to hide a body, should the situation ever arise. Though getting the corpse over the top of the walls would be a challenge. 😁

The main difference in anything that I see is that the muck spreading now involves a tractor dragging a long hosepipe round rather than a tanker spraying out the back, but the odour from that is the same as it was before (so a bit rich for the day and then gone, doesn't happen too often).

Edited to add...
TLDR... I wouldn't assume this is a show stopper if it was my dream place. I would visit a farm or two who have one and see for yourself if 600m is enough to not care about it. (I suspect it is fine)

Thanks for your perspective, really helpful. We’re expecting some farm smells as and when they’re spreading as part of countryside life but this is far outside our knowledge and experience!

What is the prevailing wind direction? Would the house be down wind of it almost all of the time or infrequently?

Flies, loads of flies

Wind direction is mostly S/SW/W, about 25% N/NW, the lagoon would lie to the north of the property

I’m wondering what the minimum distance from the lagoon would be for decent fly dispersal!

At over half a kilometre away you won't notice that. If anything it will also mean birds, lots of birds.

The way they are built means that the surface area is low compared to the volume.
If you think about human sewage plants who have multiple wide pools with those stirring arms turning and mixing it all the time... They have a strong smell and you know when you are down wind.
They have a large overall surface area to volume and it is agitated to aerate it. This increases the smells greatly.

With a slurry lagoon, the surface area isn't much and this is really what dictates how much you smell it. It also isn't being stirred.

Which is why you can have such a massive amount of slurry sitting there and not notice it.

The swallows will sort you out.

It's probably a bigger version of something that is already there. The rules on slurry storage have changed so farmers are having to be able to store far more than they used to so are having to increase capacity.

It won't really smell until they are sucking it out to spread it.

Why do you think that?

I was reading this thinking yuck, then realised how fucking stupid I am. I literally live opposite a pig farm, and I can see the slurry pit from my bedroom window 😂

It's not an issue whatsoever, ever. Been here 13 years and absolutely love the fresh air and farm smells. A couple of times a year it's savage when the farmer sprays the field, like, proper eye watering, but I still love it!! It's sweet smelling and I find it homely.

But the other 360 days a year, wouldn't even know it was there.

The pool wouldn't worry me, the associated traffic delivering and removing the slurry would (smells, noise and road mess). Also, how close are you to where slurry may be spread? Or where crops will be harvested / cattle grazed etc? Farming is naturally noisy and smelly work!

Sadly I can't handle the smell of slurry or muck spreading (triggers migraines) so we can never live rurally! I found a gorgeous house this month, but it backs onto fields where they'll definitely spray every year so it's a no go.

Agree with every word except I'd swap 'probably' with 'just'

If it is 600m away you won't even notice it. All dairy farms have one and unless you are standing right next to it you won't notice a smell.

When they spread the slurry is another matter but that will only be once or twice per year.

And you can always take note of the PP’s point that it’s a handy place to dispose of bodies. See it as a bonus.

What associated traffic are you envisaging? Most slurry pits/lagoons are very close to where the sheds with the animals are.

They animals will be mucked out once a day which will go directly into the slurry pit. It's usually a very small 'scraper tractor' that does this job. Some farmers have robots that clear the muck out throughout the day so no vehicles involved in that bit at all.

Depending on the farming system this may only be during the winter months as well as the animals are outside during spring and summer naturally fertilizing the fields.

A few times a year the slurry pit will be emptied by a tractor and tanker and spread on the fields.

I have a slurry lagoon and annoying relatives. I have also had fantasies about disposing of bodies in aforementioned lagoon. Then I watched an episode of Vera where the slurry preserved the body, glad I watched that before acting on that fantasy, back to woodchopping frozen bodies at sea.
Lagoons don't smell until disturbed and spreading slurry is less pungent than it used to be due to new rules, trailed/injection versus spreader plate.

The farm behind me has one. I can smell it from the field before the field it’s in. It definitely has an aroma.