Experiences of living near a landfill site please

Pink-Angel

Hi, does anyone have any experience of living near a landfill site? I'm looking to move and there is a lovely property in a lovely location …. except it is very near a landfill site. From the website it seems to be landfill with incinerator as well.  I'm being told there are no issues and that I wouldn't know it was there, but I'm concerned about possible smells, gas, health risks, water contamination etc. Especially thinking of some of the hot summer days we sometimes get. If anyone has any experiences to share I would be grateful, as don't want to be making a fuss about nothing, but equally don't want to make a mistake I'll regret. Thank you!

RedFraggle

I lived about a mile from a landfill and depending on the wind you could smell it and it was pretty horrendous. It smelled like penicillin. 

JGB1955

You will get sick of the smell and flocks of screeching gulls that the site wil attract.

Pink-Angel

Thanks so much for responding. The property is about a mile from the landfill site away so pretty close to it, hence my concern. 

JayRitchie

Do you know how long the landfill has left on its license / until it is full? They are normally converted into country parks once they close, and as housing can't be built on the site as a piece of long term planning this could be very attractive.

Norman_Castle

Pink-Angel said:

Thanks so much for responding. The property is about a mile from the landfill site away so pretty close to it, hence my concern. 

I wouldn't consider a mile as pretty close. There might be problems but they will be reduced by the distance. I would find out exactly what land they own and the likelihood of expansion and as above, planned closure dates.

diggingdude

A mile away you will likely only get the occasional smell, not the gulls.  Can you see it from your house (that would put me off just as much as anything else if you can).  Agree with the license comment, i was looking at a flat a couple of years ago to buy, it was near a former refuse site, but you would never know you were near anything industrial as it looked lovely

Pink-Angel

Norman_Castle said:

Pink-Angel said:

Thanks so much for responding. The property is about a mile from the landfill site away so pretty close to it, hence my concern. 

 I would find out exactly what land they own and the likelihood of expansion and as above, planned closure dates.

Thanks for the suggestion. The energy into waste facility contract for the site is for 30 years from 2016. There are daily waste trains arriving at the site. I'll have to look into the landfill part of the site to see if I can find that information. 

daivid

Lived about 1/2 a mile from one previously. Couldn't see it, and could rarely smell it from outside the house, never inside. From houses 100m closer it could be smelt quite often. As suggested the days it is most likely to be noticed are often going to be the days you are most likely to want to be outside. Will the prevailing winds carry the smell towards the property or away?

sgun

I used to live about 3 miles from this one https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/blaydon-quarry-landfill-site-close-16064568 on a bad day for us you could just about smell it. In the villages around a mile from it the smell was so bad that they couldn't open their windows. It was disgusting - particularly in that hot summer of 2018. This is a worst case scenario but it shows how bad it could be. So really it depends on who runs it and how much the council cares about upholding licensing conditions.
30 years is a long time and you can't guarantee regulations will stay the same.

Pink-Angel

Thank you everyone. It is the hot weather I'm particularly worried about, especially as they get several waste trains a day. I know we don't always get much of a summer but we do get some hot days. I guess wind direction can change