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, with the majority of our staff working from home. We continue to carry out regulatory visits to sites that could cause serious environmental harm where required. However, we are reducing regulatory visits to other sites and review how best to regulate them in accordance with the Government guidance.
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
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
During a visit in early March 2020 officers determined the level of odour off site was in breach of the conditions of the sites permit. The odour was described as “fresh waste” and attributed to the active tipping area. The site operator was required to review the material being used to cover recently deposited waste and increase the use of soils for this purpose. Revised procedures were received and implemented as required. Mains gas odour was also detected at two locations on local footpaths off site during the visit and reported to the relevant authority.
The site must be engineered to ensure that the waste is contained in a low permeability liner to protect groundwater. We must approve the construction details before any works commence. All of the engineering measures are rigorously tested and inspected to ensure their integrity. Construction Quality Assurance (CQA) validation reports are required for each new waste cell. No waste can be deposited until we have confirmed that we are satisfied with the CQA validation report. Further information can be found in the FAQ’s in our online information page
The landfill site is open and receiving waste and we continue to be in regular contact with the site operator. Engineering works to construct the sidewall for the next phases are on-going this involved laying approved source clay against the side wall of the quarry. The recent dry weather has enabled this work to progress well, as illustrated to the photo to the right. A CQA validation report will be required on completion of the works.
Residents have raised concerns about the landfill operating hours. The operating hours are considered by the County Council (Stafford County Council) as part of the planning permissions for the sites. Please email any concerns to: regulation@staffordshire.gov.uk. They do not form part of our Environmental Permit conditions.
We have continued to contact the site regularly & ensure details of complaints (although we never release personal data so they cannot identify complainants) are provided to them. In accordance with their Odour & Noise Management Plan the site operator must investigate and advise of the outcome of their investigations. We have received some complaints of noise, some referring to a generator type noise. These have been investigated and no source out of hour’s noise at the facility have been identified.
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
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
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
We have produced a generic landfill FAQ document, which you can viewed here
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 incidentsWhen 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.
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.
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