Fleetwood residents are still complaining of a bad odour omitting from a landfill site in the town.
Locals have lived with a ‘sulphur-like’ smell omitting from a landfill site on Jameson Road for over a year. In 2023, the landfill was taken over by Transwaste from previous occupiers Suez and once work began, residents complained of a foul stench.
Cell Five of the site was worked on to bring up to modern standards, creating an unpleasant odour for those living nearby. The company installed installed pin wells to capture methane and reduce odours, but the cell needed to be re-opened.
Although the smell has somewhat reduced and complaints were kept to a minimum, residents are once again complaining of the smell that is impacting their lives. Campaigner Jessica Brown, who runs the Facebook group Action Against Jameson Road Landfill with other 2,500 members says it’s something the locals are having to live with every day.
Speaking to LancsLive, Jessica said: “We left it for a few months where it was only coming in very mildly. Since about the 4th January, it’s been back really bad.
The landfill site can be seen on the hill near Fleetwood Marsh Nature Reserve
“It’s mainly around the evening time and when it’s been cold it’s been really bad.” Landfill owners Transwaste have said the odour is from fresh waste, rather than landfill gas which caused the previous issues.
As more waste is added to the site, workers have to move it around. Transwaste suggest the colder air has been a catalyst for the smell, but some residents say the odour has been particularly bad even on milder days.
In May last year, the Environment Agency (EA) served a suspension notice on the operator after breaches of their permit, but this was lifted in August 2024 after assessing that the conditions were met. The EA state they’ve seen an overall reduction in hte odour complaints being reported to them since last summer.
Work continues to increase regulatory response to the site, which includes monitoring activities on the site. However, Jess says that the residents are looking to stage more protests in the next few weeks if the odour continues to be smelt across the town.
“People are having health issues again,” Jess explained. “Things like stingy eyes, headaches, breathing problems, so it is an ongoing thing again.
“I think a few people have been to the doctors about it. I thought we had actually got somewhere and put it to bed so we could get on with our lives, but we haven’t unfortunately.”
In April 2024, LancsLive reported that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) could not rule out a risk to health, stating any risk to physical health is “likely to be small” but alarmingly it “cannot be completely excluded.”
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We’d like to reassure the community that we continue to carry out frequent site inspections to ensure the operator is meeting the conditions of its environmental permit.
“Landfills do from time-to-time experience short lived odour issues by the nature of their operations dealing with waste, and this can be a particular issue during poor weather conditions, like we’ve experienced recently.
“We understand the impact the odours have on the community and while positive steps have been taken to reduce odour issues at the site, we will not hesitate to take further enforcement action if our assessments show poor compliance or increased odour levels.”
A spokesperson from Transwaste said: “The odour detected was odour from fresh waste, rather than landfill gas which was the previous issue resolved by installing the modern gas capture infrastructure into the old cell 5.
“It would appear this has been caused by work to raise the leachate chambers in Cell 6. Leachate chambers are concrete rings, similar to drainage inspection chambers (“manholes” in old-fashioned terminology). There are three of these in Cell 6 and as the level of waste rises, we have to raise the level of the leachate chambers by installing more rings on top of the existing ones.
“This has involved having to move some waste around to work on them and then move the waste back around them again afterwards. Odour assessments did not suggest there would be a problem, but the colder, heavier air has caused the odour to linger rather than dissipate as it would do under normal conditions.
“The work has now been completed and to reduce odour levels as quickly as possible we are ceasing waste deliveries from 12 noon today and are working solely on covering up the disturbed waste. Any wagons coming onto site this afternoon will only be bringing in more soils to supplement the cover.”
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