VILLAGERS are demanding action to get rid of swarms of super-resilient flies which they claim are coming from a nearby landfill site.

People from Astley Green are fed up of having to stock up on insect repellent and fly paper in an effort to get rid of the pests.

Members of Astley Green Village Committee are hoping to meet representatives from Viridor, which runs the Whitehead landfill site, the Environment Agency, and Wigan Council's Environmental Health department, in a bid to find a solution to the problem.

Committee secretery Ingrid Berry said when the group did a traffic survey near the landfill site, they had to sit in their vehicles with the windows closed as there were so many flies.

She said: "People are having problems because of the flies and we've been told Viridor have blamed our rubbish bins or the nearby maggot farm, but the farm produces bluebottles which are different flies."

Whitehead manager Dawn Mason said: "We are monitored by the Environmental Health and Environment Agency as a matter of course and have on-going discussions to review problems, make sure there are no flies and see if there is anything we can do any better or differently. But we most definitely do not have a fly problem on site."