FLIES have taken over a village, bringing misery to residents, shutting local businesses and causing a residential home for people with learning difficulties to evacuate its patients.

Both the Bull at Benenden and the King William IV pubs, both in Benenden, shut up shop this week because of the invasion, with stores in the village High Street following suit.

The Collingwood Grange Nursing Home, which cares for 20 residents with learning disabilities aged 16 to 69, has given up fighting the flies and taken all those patients who could move to a hotel in Eastbourne.

Owner Linda Fennel said: "It's going to be expensive for us but there was nothing we could do. It was impossible to prepare any food. A few of our residents can't be moved for health reasons and we are having to bring in meals from outside for them."

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has received more than 100 complaints and environmental officers say they have identified the source of the flies -- chicken manure spread on fields at Walkhurst Farm, Benenden, and stored at Challenden Farm, Sandhurst.

The council is considering taking legal action.

The problem began two weeks ago when villagers in Benenden and Sandhurst noticed an unusual number of flies about.

Christopher Evans, who lives close to Walkhurst Farm, said: "It suddenly took off in the middle of last week."

Now Mr Evans and his wife Kathy have been forced to give up eating at home altogether because no amount of fly-spray or fly-paper can keep the flies from landing on their food.

He said: "We go out to eat every day now and we've sent our 13-year-old daughter to stay with her elder sister in Ashford to get away from them.

"Life here is utterly miserable."

But the farm owners blamed for the fly invasion have denied they are responsible.

Edward Cyster, the son of John Cyster who owns Walkhurst and Challenden Farms, said: "We don't accept that we are to blame at all.

"It is true that we spread chicken manure at Walkhurst, but that was about three weeks ago, and we conformed to all the guidelines set by the Environment Agency. The manure was ploughed in immediately afterwards.

"We have manure stored at Challenden, but it is properly covered by plastic sheeting with the edges dug into the ground and that is too far away to have affected Benenden.

"There is a bit of a witch-hunt going on in the village at the moment, with people blaming us, but there are lots of farms who spread manure at this time of year.

"We have also had extremely hot weather lately, there could have been other sources for the flies altogether."

Mr Cyster said he had been out to inspect the fields at Walkhurst and found no evidence of fly contamination.

When informed that environmental health officers had identified Walkhurst as the source, Mr Cyster said: "We have had no official notification of that and I as I say we have followed all the guidelines."