Walley’s Quarry Landfill Site, Cemetery Road, Silverdale, Newcastle under Lyme ST56DH

Overview

Walley’s Quarry Landfill Site, Cemetery Road, Silverdale, Newcastle under Lyme ST56DH

This information page explains the work that the Environment Agency is doing to regulate the Red Industries RM Limited landfill site (also known as Walleys Quarry) in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.

Site Details

The Environment Agency regulates two environmental permits held by Red Industries to operate a waste facility at Walleys Quarry.  One permit for the landfill site and one permit for the soil treatment facility. 

Walleys Quarry Landfill site – We issued an Environmental Permit for Walleys Quarry’s Landfill site on 9 June 2005 to Lafarge Aggregates Limited.  The permit was transferred to Red Industries RM Limited on  3 November 2016.

The permit allows the operation of a Non Hazardous waste landfill with a separate cell for Stable Non-Reactive Hazardous Waste (SNRHW) (gypsum and asbestos).  The operator has never used a separate cell and therefore SNRHW is not accepted.

The total quantity of waste allowed to be accepted at the facility is 250,000 tonnes per year. Non Hazardous waste includes municipal and industrial wastes.

The permit also allows the operation of

• a leachate treatment plant for management of leachate produced by the landfill
• landfill gas engine and flare for treatment and utilisation of landfill gas created by the landfill

Monitoring is required for landfill gas, leachate, surface water and groundwater at a number of points at the facility, at different frequencies (weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual)

Walleys Quarry Soil Treatment facility – we issued an Environment Permit for Walleys Quarry soil treatment facility on 11 April 2012 for the treatment of waste to produce soil, soil substitutes and aggregates. The operator does not currently undertake this operation

Click here to view the permits - Walleys Quarry transfer notice and Walleys Quarry consoldiated permit

Our regulatory activities

We undertake odour checks in the area and visit the site regularly to assess compliance with the permit conditions. Since March 2019 we have completed monthly tours of the area using equipment to monitor for landfill gas.

The operator is informed about complaints, although we never release personal data so they cannot identify complainants. In accordance with their Odour Management Plan the operator will investigate issues raised in complaints and advise us of the outcome.

Current situation

The operator submitted an application to the Environment Agency in March 2019 to vary their permit and increase the annual waste quantity. The application seeks to increase the permitted quantity of waste annually (January to December) from 250,000 tonnes to 400,000 tonnes.

In response to local residents concerns we have treated the application to be of High Public Interest (HPI) and invited comments through a public consultation in May 2019. The application is still being determined. As part of the determination process we consider all relevant comments received during the consultation. We will soon reach our draft or ‘minded to’ decision, this is not our final decision. We will run another public consultation, allowing the public to share their comments on our draft decision. When we are informed of the dates we will share with the public.

Full details of the permit application can be viewed here.

During 2019 the operator installed an additional 19 gas extraction wells. These wells have been connected to the gas management system. Landfill gas, including the trace component of Hydrogen Sulphide, may be emitted from the surfaces of a landfill. We call these fugitive emissions

 In early February 2020 the site operator will be installing gas wells in the area of the site where they have recently being depositing waste. This area will also be covered with soils to prevent fugitive emissions of gas.

Timescales – what we are doing and when

 To enable us to further understand the potential impact on air quality from Walleys Quarry landfill site we installed specialist air quality monitoring equipment to monitor air emissions in the area. This equipment was installed on 15 January 2019 and monitoring continued until  25 June 2019 near the northern boundary of the site, on the grounds of Garner’s Garden Centre.

The main findings from the air monitoring data were:

• Particulate, nitrogen dioxide and benzene concentrations met expected Air Quality Strategy objectives
• Toluene, ethylbenzene and m&p-xylenes were found to be within their respective Environmental Assessment Levels
• Toluene levels were found to be within the specified World Health Organisation (WHO) health and odour limits
• During the first 28 days of monitoring, hydrogen sulphide was within WHO health limits, but exceeded odour limits for 6% of the time
• After moving the monitoring equipment, for the remaining 118 days, hydrogen sulphide remained within WHO health limits, but exceeded odour limits for 1% of the time

No further ambient air monitoring is planned, but we continue to visit the site to monitor site processes and practices.

The air monitoring reports are available to view below:

Walleys quarry report full

Walleys quarry report summary

Roles and responsibilities and contact details

Environment Agency

The Environment Agency regulates the two environmental permits held by the Red Industries RM Limited (“the operator”) for Walleys Quarry landfill.  Our regulation includes reviews of monitoring data and site visits, both announced and unannounced.

Should you have concerns with regards to odour outside of the site boundaries, pests or any other pollution matters relating to the sites please call our free 24 hour incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60