South West Water has apologised for a mysterious smell which had “taken over” Falmouth and said it will work to clean the sewers.

Residents of Falmouth had taken to social media to complain about the |dour - which they thought could be from sewers or drains, rotting fish or oil from the docks - across town from |Old Hill to Melvill Road, as well as in the town centre.

Tracy Rolling started the thread on Facebook group You Know You Grew |Up In Falmouth When... by writing: |“Can anyone tell me what the horrible smell is that seems to be taking over Falmouth? Used to be down by the roundabout by the docks but I can smell it at seafront, Spernen Wyn, Old Hill area and lots of other places. Smells like sewers. Not nice at all.”

Tracy told the Packet: “It's just something that everybody's noticing when they drive around Falmouth. |They never used to notice it.

“You used to notice it at the roundabout by the Falmouth Hotel, but this year people have noticed it a lot more.

“Started to smell it along the sea front, not far from the old chapel, all the way along the sea front, up Spernen Wyn Road. We live in Old Hill and we smell it on Glasney Road.

“I just wondered if anybody knew what it was, to me it smells like sewage. The council need to sort it out because we have tourists coming down here.

“If I came here on holiday and smelled that smell I wouldn't come back again.”

She added: “People say it's the river beds. I've grown up in Falmouth and I know that smell, and it's not that smell.

“It's all the time, every day. It's gut wrenching.”

Falmouth's town manager, Richard Gates, said he had not had any complaints about the smell, but that when a similar issue had arisen before it had been due to a sewage main that runs through the town to the bottom of Melvill Road, which had been resolved at the time by South West Water.

He said: “We've had issues in the past, but not any complaints recently. We don't want to have any bad smells in the town, especially in terms of all that's going on. I'll happily look into it.”

South West Water confirmed they had received seven telephone calls regarding odours in Falmouth.

A spokesperson said: “We apologise |for the odour issues recently in |Falmouth we will be cleansing the |sewers in the affected area and |dosing with calcium nitrate to prevent any reoccurrence.”

To cleanse the system, the company will spray the affected areas with |water at high pressure before using a large vacuum cleaning device to remove any deposits.