Birchenlee Foundry
IndustrialInert
Birchenlee Foundry is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Colne, Lancashire. It received industrial and inert waste between 1978 and 1983, covering about 0.2 hectares. Reference EAHLD07026, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD07026 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Birchenlee Foundry |
| Address | Waterside, Colne, Lancashire |
| Site operator | Not recorded |
| Licence holder | W H Slinger Esquire |
| Licence issued | 1 November 1978 |
| Licence surrendered | 31 December 1983 |
| First waste input | 1 November 1978 |
| Last waste input | 30 November 1983 |
| Area | 0.2 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Central NW |
| Grid reference | 388800, 439500 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Industrial:
- factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Site of Former Gas HolderInert
- Knotts LaneIndustrialHouseholdCommercial
- Coal Pit MeadowIndustrial
- Sansbury QuarryIndustrialCommercialInert
- Coal WharfHousehold
- Barrowford Road Refuse TipCommercial
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.