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RESIDENTS in Haverhill's Chalkstone area claim their lives have been made a misery by noise and smells from a dump behind their homes.
Families living behind the Reeds Lane tip say they are woken every morning around 6am by bleeping dumper trucks and are continually complaining about the bad smell.
St Edmunsbury Borough Council was given planning permission for a dump for green waste, such as grass and hedge cuttings, at the Reeds Lane depot back in 1981.
The condition was that the waste would be no higher than a metre but residents say the rubbish is higher than that and that people are using it as a dumping ground for all other kinds of waste.
Mabon Dane, town councillor for the Chalkstone ward, said: "This has been going on for 20 years and the residents were upset about it from the start.
"They put together a petition and were assured the area would just be used for parking but, a year later, permission was given for a dump providing that the rubbish would not be above one metre.
"We have complaints on a weekly basis about the noise, smells and steam. It's an awful situation."
Martin Roach, who lives at Vange Place, which looks onto the tip, said: "It's terrible. It's been getting worse for the past five or six years and we've complained numerous times.
"We get woken up in the mornings by lorries dumping rubbish and the smell is awful."
Ivan Sams, head of construction consultancy services at St Edmundsbury Borough Council, which is responsible for managing rubbish depots, said: "We were not aware of the planning restrictions to keep the rubbish to one metre at the site but, now it has been brought to my attention, we will comply with all the conditions.
"We are repairing fencing and ensuring that the spoils are no more than one metre high. That's already in action.
"We are also looking at planning additional screening around this site and are addressing the problem of early morning starts."