1500 people sign petition calling for landfill site to be closed down
More than 1,500 people have signed a petition demanding the closure of a landfill site near Wrexham due to complaints about the stench coming from it.
The Hafod site between Johnstown and Ruabon has caused growing concerns amongst residents about the impact of the waste, which is mainly from England, due to the strong odours and unknown emissions coming from the site.
A Wrexham Council scrutiny committee meeting last October heard that an enforcement notice had been imposed to improve conditions at the site in 2023 but the site owners Enovert and enforcement agency Natural Resources Wales admitted that leachate levels were still above permitted levels.
There has been particular concern expressed at the lack of action by NRW, which has the power to close the site down if it doesn’t comply with its 55-year licence granted in 2006.
Major fire
Plaid Cymru has launched a petition calling for the site to be closed down, pointing to a major fire in 2020 that led to doors and windows having to be closed due to black clouds of pollution coming off the site.
Ruabon community councillor Donna O’Brien said: “We’ve taken the message to local residents with a leaflet to 5,000 homes – it’s clear from the responses we’re getting online that the stench is regularly affecting Penycae, Pant, Rhos and Ponciau as well as Ruabon and Johnstown. The intensity of the smell also seems to be worsening with many people telling us that they can now smell it in their homes as well as outdoors. Many more people who live further afield have said they can smell it while passing on the A483 bypass – so this is not a localised minor issue. It’s a long-standing problem and getting worse.
“The stink is bad enough but nobody is willing to tell us what is causing the smell in the tip and whether it is causing harm to local people’s health. As local residents we feel ‘enough is enough’ and NRW has to take action to ensure people’s health is not being put at risk.”
North-west England
Plaid Cymru spokesperson Elwyn Vaughan added: “We’ve established that none of the domestic waste being dumped in the Hafod is coming from Wrexham Council. The majority of the waste is coming from parts of north-west England. If Wrexham can get to a point where none of its domestic waste is being landfilled or incinerated, then we have to ask why Merseyside and Manchester authorities can’t do better? Is is cheaper and easier to truck it over the border and dump here?
“The intensifying smell has to see more intensive monitoring. NRW should intervene with real-time monitoring rather than rely on Enovert to provide quarterly reports. We want to know whether the wetter weather is producing more leachate and that, in turn, is contributing to the problem.”
He said there were precedents for closing landfill sites down that didn’t comply with their licence: “Walleys Quarry in Staffordshire was also a clay pit extracted for bricks before becoming a landfill site in 2016. The equivalent of the NRW in England,the Environment Agency, began to actively monitor the site as a result of local complaints and subsequently issued in a closure notice. This has meant a cessation of waste acceptance – except for inert waste – at the site last year. It’s time the NRW took this matter as seriously.”
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