AN INVESTIGATION is under way to trace the source of an irritating smell that has been drifting across the Waterside area for more than a week.

The smell has been reported to the Environment Agency by Jenny Manley of Hythe, who is known on the Waterside as one of the country's top husky dog breeders.

Jenny has complained of a "terrible smell" which she thinks could be coming from one of the many chimneys which stretch for more than a mile between Hythe and Fawley.

The precise source of the smell has yet to be traced, but an Environment Agency spokesperson said one of its commercial process inspectors had visited the area and subsequently confirmed that the smell did exist.

The spokesperson said: "Our inspector has been there three or four times and has had meetings with people from various plants.

"He has said the smell resembles that of coal tar or something from a coke oven."

The smell is not confined to the area close to the huge petro-chemical complex and its mixture of chemical, synthetic rubber and hazardous-waste-burning sites, but had been reported two-and-a-half miles away in the Applemore area.

She has appealed to anyone who notices the smell to ring the agency's emergency hotline on 0800 807060 giving details of location the and the date and time it was noticed.

"Our aim will be to record those locations and timings on a map of the area. Then we can check wind directions at those times and attempt to establish where the smell is coming from," said.

Jenny is considering calling a public meeting to give people a chance to express their concerns and ask questions about the problem.

She said: "The smell has been there for over a week and it is intolerable. It is still uncomfortable and makes the eyes sore and the throat very dry."

The case is being followed-up by Hythe's Hampshire county councillor Brian Dash, who said: "I think the Environment Agency has to run this one to ground.

"When a problem such as this occurs, people deserve an answer and they also deserve to have the problem solved."

All plants in the area have specified limits as to what they can emit to the atmosphere, but Mr Dash said: "Specifying limits is one thing, but seeing that those limits are adhered to is another."

The finger was initially pointed at the Shanks incinerator at the northern end of the complex, but the inspector has found no evidence to lay the blame there.

A Shanks spokesman said: "We are aware of the smell, but it is something that has been coming on to our site from elsewhere and then drifting on.

"We are definitely not the source of it."