A spokesperson from the EA confirmed that “the odours appear to have been increased by the operator stripping back the cap of the landfill without seeking our authorisation, leaving the waste exposed. ”
Since their intervention, they say 90,000 square metres of the legacy waste has been capped as well as 80% of the waste site that is still in use as well as the new wells. They aim to sign off on engineering works within 24 hours to get the remedial work pushed through. They added: “We have every sympathy with the homes and businesses that this issue has affected and would like to thank members of the public who continue to report nuisance odours from the site. ”
When it comes to regulating Valencia following the issues they have created, the EA told us they are taking action. “As well as working closely with residents to minimise the impacts from the site, our officers continue to carry out regulatory inspections and are monitoring the actions being taken by the operator to improve the situation.”
Brown believes there has been an improvement in the smells in her area since the works were undertaken but as the problems remain, so do her concerns: “It does seem to me that regulations on these sites are not fit for purpose, the environment agency is not funded or equipped to deal with them.”
An ongoing problem
The EA and the UK Health Security Agency [UKHSA] are continuing to monitor the site to try to get the situation under control. However, there have been red flags about operations here prior to the odour nuisance that emerged in 2023.
In 2021, the landfill caught on fire on two occasions - in April and in October - the first of which was declared a ‘major incident’. According to Vince, it is the responsibility of the operator to make sure this never happens. He adds it is “very bad housekeeping or else possibly arson, in which case it's bad security, either way, there should never be fires on landfills. It's inexcusable.”
No reason for either fire was ever discovered, which he explained was typical of landfills as it is so difficult to find an ignition source, even if investigations are carried out. More recently, there was a fire at another Valencia facility, East Lothian’s Dunbar Landfill in August 2023. The blaze went on for five days and its neighbours are currently having similar odour problems to Pilsworth residents.
A few years before the fires, there was a much-heralded renewable energy station unveiled at the site in 2018. The Pilsworth liquid air energy storage [LAES] plant was a world-first grid-scale liquid air energy storage plant, which was backed by £8 million of government funding. It operated for two years before it was taken out of commission. Nowadays, it has a reduced role as the Pilsworth grid scale demonstrator station and a working plant is being built closer to Manchester instead.
The site has attracted controversy ever since it was a sand quarry when it was criticised for its dust pollution and heavy traffic. However, the area was identified as ‘mineral-rich’, so it was extended from the North side of Pilsworth to the South in 1997. In 2006, the South side was converted to a landfill site, with permission granted to make it bigger in 2012.
Despite the recent issues, Valencia was still given approval for a new ‘recycling centre’ at a planning meeting in December 2023. Its purpose would be to divert recyclables from received waste to be sent elsewhere. While this has been put through as a temporary measure to be erected on greenbelt land, it is one that could remain.
Valencia’s other problem landfills
What is happening in Pilsworth and Dunbar are in no way isolated incidents. It is also happening 66 miles away from Bury in Derbyshire at Erin Landfill near Chesterfield, also operated by Valencia Management. Erin was forced to close in February this year as engineering works resulted in odorous gases being released, causing residents similar issues to those in Pilsworth.
Anne-Frances Hayes is a local Labour councillor who has been working on this case since Valencia took over the site in 2022. “Since then the incidences of a foul odour emanating from the site to the villages of Poolsbrook and Duckmanton have become much more frequent and much more serious,” she explains. It was so bad that children at a nearby primary school were unable to play outside.
“Last year the EA paused their inspections on Britain’s worst waste sites in order to meet their targets, only resuming them again this year.”
Hayes has attended two meetings between residents and representatives of Valencia to address the problem. “The company seems determined, in my opinion, not to take responsibility for the issues and instead lays the responsibility at the feet of the EA,” she adds. As she has been in touch with Brown, Hayes concurs that her problems are “identical,” to those at Pilsworth.
Valencia’s Shelford Landfill in Canterbury has also had odour issues in recent years and currently has a petition against it for building a new recycling plant using planning permission obtained in 1997. Elsewhere in the country and while it was still Viridor, the operator was fined £3 million after workers Michael Atkin and Mark Wheatley were killed on two of their sites, one in Northamptonshire and one in Devon. The company admitted they had breached health and safety regulations, with both men being crushed to death while at work in 2019 and 2020.
Britain’s landfill problem goes beyond one operator
But it isn’t just Valencia. Residents are fighting similar battles at Fleetwood Landfill in Lancashire, Withyhedge Landfill in Pembrokeshire in Wales, and Clayton Hall Landfill in Lancashire. Granville Landfill at Redhill in Telford is yet another site that had a large fire as well as odour problems.
In Northern Ireland, a legal case is going to the Supreme Court on the environmental impact of the now-decommissioned Mullaghglass Landfill in County Antrim.
Despite its landmark ruling, problems also remain at Walleys Quarry years later. While these are some of the actively odorous landfills, there have been plenty more that have caused issues for residents in recent history. So much so that last year it was reported that the EA paused their inspections on Britain’s worst waste sites in order to meet their targets, only resuming them again this year.
As this affects Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as crossing county lines, it seems incumbent for the central government to get involved. Especially as the issue has been raised in Parliament numerous times by both Conservative and Labour MPs.
This year, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford requested a debate on granting the EA “more teeth,” to deal with operators like Valencia to clamp down on licence breaches. Conservative MP Aaron Bell for Newcastle-under-Lyme said in Parliament last year that his “constituents have been utterly let down,” by the EA because it has “failed to prosecute a rogue operator for the repeated breaches of its permit,” at Walleys Quarry.
He added that over the previous seven years of monitoring, their equipment “has been grossly under-recording levels of hydrogen sulphide by a factor of approximately two or three.” Sunak responded that he couldn’t comment on that until the criminal investigation into the landfill had been completed. The landfill was eventually given a suspension notice in March this year and the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council is preparing legal action over the operator’s failure to control emissions.
One alternative to landfills is waste-to-energy incinerators. However, the government has temporarily banned new permits for incinerator plants in England after an instruction by Sir Mark Spencer, an Environment Minister working under Environment Secretary Steve Barclay. Barclay was recused as he is currently campaigning to prevent an incinerator being built in his constituency.
“If we do not have other facilities being built, and we do not have proper regulation of landfills, communities like mine across the country will continue to suffer the impacts of landfills,” Brown surmised.
Valencia Waste Management has not responded to a request for comment.