Historic landfill sites in Manchester
The Environment Agency records 15 historic landfill sites in and around Manchester. covering roughly 102 hectares in total. The largest is Queens Road Tip - Land to South of Queens Road and North of Collingham Street at 26.6 ha. Recorded waste ranges up to special (hazardous) waste. Data: October 2025 revision.
Recorded landfill boundaries around Manchester (indicative, digitised at 1:10,000).
All recorded sites, largest first
| Site | Area | Last input | Waste types |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queens Road Tip - Land to South of Queens Road and North of Collingham Street | 26.6 ha | 1970 | SpecialLiquid / sludgeIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert |
| Land at Fairy Lane | 18.92 ha | — | HouseholdCommercial |
| Bradford Road Works | 13.36 ha | 1983 | SpecialIndustrialInert |
| Abraham Moss Centre | 11.79 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Moss Side Shopping Centre | 5.89 ha | 1995 | IndustrialInert |
| Land at Fitzgeorge Street | 5.25 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| South of Blackley New Road | 5.16 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Elizabeth Street | 4.38 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Sand Street | 3.38 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Overbridge Road | 1.83 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Palmerston Street Landfill | 1.47 ha | 1987 | IndustrialInert |
| Bradford Road - Cambrian Street Depot | 1.3 ha | 1990 | Inert |
| Land off Harpurhey Road | 1.04 ha | — | Inert |
| Wilburn Street | 0.93 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| New Viaduct Street | 0.71 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
What this data does — and doesn't — cover
- Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
- Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
- Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
- Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.
EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.
Common questions
- How many former landfill sites are there in Manchester?
- 15 historic (closed) landfill sites are recorded within about 15km of Manchester town centre in the Environment Agency's Historic Landfill dataset (October 2025 revision). Pre-1974 sites are incompletely recorded, so the true historical number is likely higher.
- How do I check a specific address in Manchester?
- Search the postcode on Landfill Check — you'll see every recorded site within 1km, with distance, direction and waste types, measured to the site boundary.
Nearby areas
Worth reading: buying a house near a former landfill and what the waste types mean.