Environment Agency take enforcement action taken against Transwaste landfill site creating Fleetwood pong

The Environment Agency (EA) have served Transwaste with a Regulation 36 Enforcement Notice to take specified steps inrelation to a breach of permit conditions on 9 April.

This included covering the problematic areas of the landfill site by 15 May.

Following this deadline, the EA carried out onsite assessments to establish if this notice had been complied with and if further measures are required to bring emissions under control and bring the site back into compliance with its permit.

Inspectors determined that the operator has not met the requirements of that notice and have taken time to consider further regulatory action as a result.

What action have the EA taken?

A EA spokesman said: “We have today issued a Regulation 37 Enforcement Notice in line with our Enforcement and Sanction Policy. The notice has steps requiring additional temporary capping of the landfill within six weeks.

“That notice does suspend the acceptance of waste for direct landfilling until the further work to reduce the risk of landfill gas emission and odour impact is delivered by Transwaste.

“Some covering material for example waste inert soils can be imported onto the site for the specific use in construction of the temporary capping and cover. We will be on site regularly to ensure no breach of the new notice.

“We expect the operator to comply with the conditions of their environmental permit, to better manage risk on site and stop unacceptable impacts on the local community and the environment.”

Reporting the odour

Reporting helps the Environment Agency to build up a picture of the extent and impact of the odour issue within the community.

A spokesman said: “We encourage people to continue to report to us on our 24-hour incident hotline: 0800 807060.”