News

Update – 23 June 2025

Odour Levels Increased During Engineering Works

As reported at the last community liaison group meeting, odour levels for the week commencing 9 June were temporarily slightly higher due to essential engineering works.

This work was required to integrate cells 6A and cells 6B and involved lifting part of the liner to connect the drainage stone in both cells. Although this resulted in a slight increase in odour, the work was carried to the EA-approved method statement and is now complete. The EA will now inspect the CQA report and once approved, we can recover the stone.

The drilling of all of the additional new deep wells has also now been completed and they are in the process of being connected and balanced. Once operating at maximum capacity, this will further reduce the possibility of odour escaping from the site, and the site is currently generating enough renewable electricity to power 5,000 homes. 

The odour report, conducted as part of the comprehensive monitoring programme, recorded observations at both high sensitivity locations—such as residential and public-facing areas—and at lower sensitivity zones around the site perimeter.

Overall, “no odour” has been the most frequently recorded observation across all sites during the week. However, there has been an increase in the recordings of “rotten egg” odour (10% of all recordings compared to zero percent last week). All of these recordings were attributed to the landfill site.

“Perfume” odour made up 5% of odour recordings with “sewage” making up 3%.

Recordings at high sensitivity sites followed a similar pattern, and possibly explains why the odour was more noticeable. Whilst “no odour” was the dominant observation at high sensitivity sites (89% of recordings), there was an increase in rotten egg odours (9% of all recordings at high sensitivity sites).