Granville Woodhouse Landfill Information Page

Overview

Page created 26 March 2024. Last updated 6 November 2024.

We are sorry to hear that residents have been experiencing problems with odour in the local area. Please be assured that we are working with the operator, Potters (Midlands) Ltd, to resolve these issues.

Thank you for visiting our information page. 

Background

Granville Woodhouse Landfill (also known as Redhill Landfill) has been operational at this location since 1991. The Environment Agency regulates the landfilling activities by way of an Environmental Permit. This permit contains conditions that control the operations carried out on site, ranging from the construction and design of a landfill cell; the types and volumes of waste that can be accepted; the emissions and their limits; and the frequency and type of environmental monitoring that is required.

Environmental Permit conditions are in place to ensure operations at the site are carried out in a way that prevents or minimises emissions and impacts on the environment, using appropriate management systems. The Environmental Permit allows the site to accept a wide range of non-hazardous and biodegradable wastes.

The local Planning Authority, Telford and Wrekin Council, gave approval for a landfill at this location. The planning permission restricts vehicle movements, operational hours, the area that can be infilled and the operational life of the site. It also requires the operator to comply with a previously agreed restoration plan to complete the landfill to a specific height and profile after it has been closed to accepting waste.

Granville Woodhouse Landfill is heavily engineered and formed from individual cells. Each cell is constructed with a clay and geomembrane liner to protect the ground around and below that cell. Once the cell is full of waste, it is then capped. Initially this is temporary capping using a layer of clay over the surface of the cell. This is to help prevent rainwater entering the waste, stop the waste inside being disturbed and to enable the gases being produced to be captured. When the cell is complete then permanent capping is installed. As with the base of the cell, the capping must be designed to an engineered standard.

Current situation

We recognise that odours coming from the landfill escalated in March 2024. We undertook odour monitoring in your community which linked the odour to the site and identified the likely actions needed to resolve this unacceptable situation.

We have agreed an action plan with the landfill operator to improve gas and odour control. The majority of this plan is now complete, resulting in increased gas capture from the sealing of a significant part of the landfill operations through capping. Changes to the gas system, including the installation of 6 new gas wells on the landfill, has resulted in doubling the total gas collection. This is a result of the agreed plan to increase extraction from previously tipped areas and the active tipping face. This not only reduces the odours that could be witnessed on and off site, but has big environmental benefits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The permanent sealing of waste (known as capping) began on 3 June 2024, this has covered more than 30,000m2 of waste. The sealing of this area of the site is now complete with just a protection/restoration layer of soil materials to be finished to protect the capping.

A photograph of our officer inspecting the progress of the capping works is shown below.

We undertook a gas management audit of the site in July 2024. As a result of this audit Potters (Midlands) Ltd have submitted new procedures for gas and odour management. The operator has reviewed its plans for the phasing of future areas to ensure cells that require capping are more manageable and completed regularly. The cells that have been tipped in this year are now full of waste. The temporary capping of this area is now planned to begin in November 2024. This will involve the installation of a temporary geomembrane over the whole cell to stop gas emissions causing odour issues, and tests will be carried out by the operator to confirm this. The plans are to permanently cap these cells in spring/summer 2025.

Waste operations have moved into the newly engineered cell and will follow the new procedures for gas collection and a smaller working area. The measures described above aim to provide greater protection for the community and the environment, as well as maximising gas collection in the long term so incidents of odour are less likely to occur.

We will continue to monitor odours, track progress against the agreed plan and review the operator's management plans to ensure it is working in accordance with its permit.

Future updates

Due to some of the capping work being delayed on site because of the wet weather, we are planning to keep this information page open until the end of January 2025. We will continue to keep you updated through this information page as and when new information is available. 

Incident reporting

Please continue to report any issues linked to this site, such as odour, to our 24-hour incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60. Your reports help build a picture of the issue, inform our investigation and allow us to feedback to the permitted site the effect any measures being implemented are having. It is important that you report any odour issues you are experiencing. 

When reporting odour incidents to us, we will ask you to assess the strength of the odour on a scale of 0 to 6. To help with your assessment, an explanation of this scale is as follows: 

0 – No odour 

1 – Very faint odour (need to inhale into the wind to smell anything) 

2 – Faint odour (you can detect an odour when you inhale normally) 

3 – Distinct odour (there is clearly an odour in the air as you leave your car or enter the area) 

4 – Strong odour (a bearable odour but strong, you could stay in the area for some time) 

5 – Very strong odour (unpleasantly strong, you will want to leave the area quickly) 

6 – Extremely strong odour (likely to cause nausea and a strong need to remove yourself from the odour immediately) 

No landfill will ever be completely odour free. However, the level and type of odour from such operations should not be causing offence. The permit conditions require an Environment Agency officer to make a judgement about whether an odour is offensive. We can only take enforcement action where it is deemed offensive and the operator is not using all appropriate measures.

Health concerns

If residents have any health concerns, we advise them to contact NHS 111 as we are unable to provide health advice. 

We are sharing information with Telford and Wrekin Council and UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to help inform their health messages around landfill odour.

Frequently asked questions

We have included below the answers to some commonly asked questions about landfill sites. We hope you find these useful.

Useful links

How the Environment Agency regulate permitted facilities: Waste operations and installations: assessing and scoring environmental permit compliance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  

Telford and Wrekin Council website - frequently asked questions: https://www.telford.gov.uk/info/21927/landfill_sites/6700/granville_landfill_site_redhill

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