Fire hit landfill site set to close by 2030

The operator of a landfill site that has been hit by a number of fires says it is aiming to complete operations and close the site by 2030.

It comes as plans to extend operations at Greenways Landfill site at Appleford Sidings in Sutton Courtenay, which burned for 12 days in September, are set to be refused amid mounting complaints about its smell.

In June, operator FCC Environment submitted plans to continue working at the site until the end of 2039. Under current permissions, landfilling there must end in 2030.

Council officers have now recommended refusal of plans to extend the end date of the facility, along with a recycling facility on the site until 2029.

In the three months following the application, more than 1,000 complaints were made about odours so "persistent" they were preventing people from "opening windows and affecting their ability to sleep", according to Olly Glover, Lib Dem MP for Didcot and Wantage.

In September, a fire broke out at the site, lasting for more a week and producing smoke that affected nearby communities including Didcot, Appleford and Culham.

Reports made ahead of an Oxfordshire County Council planning meeting on Monday said if FCC's plans were approved it "would mean that both the application site and the landfill site in which it is located would not be restored in a timely and phased manner".

This follows a visit by Glover, who was raising residents' concerns "following the fires and strong odour from the landfill site over the summer".

The facility handles 60,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste every year.

A spokesperson for FCC said: "We have been working proactively with the Environment Agency over the last few weeks to investigate recent reports of odour, and to ensure we mitigate any potential impact from our operations to the local communities."

On the fire, they added that "FCC worked hard to extinguish it following the advice of the fire service to ensure the controlled burn time was significantly reduced", and said the "root cause" of the blaze is still unknown.

They concluded: "We explained to everybody at the meeting that we cannot simply stop landfill operations but that we need to complete the site leaving a long-term sustainable landform.

"We intend to close the site as soon as we can achieve this landform and at the very least, the landfill site will be closed by 2030 when the planning expires."