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
Coronavirus: The Environment Agency response
We are working hard with Government and other emergency responders on protecting the public and the environment from the effects of Coronavirus. The Environment Agency remains fully operational and committed to adhering to all Government guidelines with the majority of our staff working from home. However we continue to visit permitted sites and complete amenities assessments.
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
Latest News
Walley’s Quarry Second Permit Variation
On the 11 November 2020 a second application to vary the permit for the Walley’s Quarry landfill site was “Duly Made”. This means we have sufficient information to commence our determination of the application.
The application requests the following changes:
- Increase leachate levels within the site, with a supporting Hydrogeological Risk Assessment to demonstrate the change will not cause pollution of groundwater.
- Increase the compliance limit for methane for one borehole and to amend the carbon dioxide limit for 13 boreholes. This is to account for the presence of higher levels of carbon dioxide in the background, within mine gas in the local strata.
- To change the design of the capping to include the option for using membrane. Currently the site is permitted to use a 1 metre clay cap only.
There will be no formal consultation on this application as there are no proposals to change the waste activities which would be of interest to the community. The application is held on the public register and can be requested by contacting the West Midlands Enquiries Team at Enquiries_Westmids@environment-agency.gov.uk
Final Decision to issue variation to the environmental permit
In December 2018 we received an environmental permit variation application for Walley’s Quarry Landfill Site, Cemetery Road, Silverdale, Newcastle under Lyme ST56DH, on behalf of Red Industries RM Ltd. The variation to the existing environmental permit, requested an increase in the annual waste inputs from 250,000 tonnes to 400,000 tonnes.
We ran our first public consultation on the variation application from 24 May 2019 to 20 August 2019. We then ran a public consultation on our draft decision to issue the variation from 19 August 2020 till 16 September 2020. Following our assessment of the variation application, including a review of all the comments received from our public consultations the variation was issued on the 30 October 2020. The business demonstrated within the application that the proposed change meets all the legal requirements therefore we are legally obliged to issue the permit variation.
To view the permit please follow the link below:
https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/psc/st5-6dh-red-industries-limited-dd/supporting_documents/Variation%20Notice.pdf
To view the decision document please follow the link below:
For more information:
https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/psc/st5-6dh-red-industries-limited-dd/
Site inspection
We continue to carry out odour assessments in the area. The latest assessment was carried out on the 19 October 2020, when an Environment Officer did detect a landfill type odour at the Silverdale cross roads traffic lights. However, we did not consider this to be in breach of the permit. We informed the operator which is our normal practice. Subsequently, we completed a site visit on the 23 October 2020 and undertook a monitoring exercise using a hand held Tuneable Diode Laser (TDL) monitor. Prior to the visit we detected a landfill type odour on Cemetery Road opposite the site entrance which we rated at 3 out of 6. The operator advised us that the likely source of the odour was a gas well. A member of staff on site had reported that the gas well needed repair that morning. The site was already taking action and the repairs were completed during our site visit. Since our last visit additional soils had been applied to the part of the site which borders the garden centre and the near the site entrance. 
Newcastle under Lyme Borough Council Scrutiny Review Working Party – Environment Agency Presentation
The Walley’s Quarry Landfill scrutiny committee regulator session took place virtually on 7 October 2020. Newcastle under Lyme Borough Council has set up a scrutiny review working party to investigate and consider the concerns about Walleys Quarry Landfill, in Silverdale, raised by those living and working nearby. The Environment Agency were requested to be part of the regulators session to provide information on our regulation of the site and take questions from members of the working group.
If you would like to review the information the Environment Agency presented please click here to see the full presentation.
For further information on this session please refer to Newcastle under Lyme council website: https://moderngov.newcastle-staffs.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=464&MId=3769
Liaison Meetings
Regular community liaison meetings, facilitated by the operator Red Industries, continue to be held. Invitees to the meeting include the Environment Agency, local and parish councillors, representatives from the local community including residents associations, the local action group and a local resident. Resident’s representatives are included on the group. If any further residents are interested in joining these meetings to represent the community please email: enquiries@redindustries.co.uk.
We attended the last community liaison meeting which was held 8 October 2020. During the meeting Red Industries shared the following; a presentation with information on how they have been operating during Covid-19, a site update and an artist’s impression of what the landfill might look like once the site has been completely capped off and restored.
If you would like to find out more about these meetings including the meeting notes please follow the link below:
https://www.redindustries.co.uk/walleys-landfill-community/
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
Staffordshire County Council
The County Council is responsible for determining planning applications for the sites. We are consulted by the Council on planning applications. If you have any planning permission questions please contact: regulation@Staffordshire.gov.uk
For any other enquiries:
Email: contactus@staffordshire.gov.uk
General enquiries (Contact Centre): 0300 111 8000
Textphone/Minicom users: 01785 276207
Air Quality Monitoring
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 air monitoring reports are available to view below:
Walleys quarry report full 2019
Walleys quarry report summary 2019
Walleys quarry report full 2017-2018
Walleys quarry report summary 2017-2018
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
Further information can be found by clicking on the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/landfill-sites-impact-on-health-from-emissions
For Public Health England (PHE) response to the Air Quality Monitoring response please click here
Keeping local residents updated
During this period of restriction due to Coronavirus we will only update you if there are any significant changes we need to make you aware of.
You can view our previous community updates below:
February 2020 Community Update
March and April 2020 Community Update
July and August 2020 Community Update
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
We have produced a generic landfill FAQ document, which you can viewed here
Incident reporting
We want to hear from you if you have an environmental incident or concern to report, including any odour concerns.
To do this, call our free 24 hour incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60
Reporting odour incidentsMore Information
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 and we can only take enforcement action where it is deemed offensive and the operator is not using all appropriate measures.
Thank you for visiting our information page.
If you have any feedback about this page or use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of any document in a more accessible format, please email Engagement_WestMids@environment-agency.gov.uk Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.
Audiences
- Businesses
- Members of the public
- Elected representatives, including MPs
- Local councils
- Environment Agency customers
- Environment Agency colleagues
Interests
- Business and industry
- Waste
- Permits
- Environmental permitting
- Installation
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