Landfill Check

Former Enfield Sewage Works

Liquid / sludgeIndustrialHouseholdInert

Former Enfield Sewage Works is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. It received liquid/sludge, industrial, household and inert waste between 1952 and 1980, covering about 54.85 hectares. Reference EAHLD11207, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD11207
Site nameFormer Enfield Sewage Works
AddressPainters Lane, Enfield
Site operatorSt Albans Sand and Gravel Company Limited
Licence holderLondon Borough of Enfield
Licence issued7 July 1982
Licence surrendered22 January 1986
First waste input31 December 1952
Last waste input31 December 1980
Area54.85 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteYes
EA areaNorth East TH
Grid reference537100, 199400

Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.

Boundary map

What these waste types mean

Liquid / sludge:
liquid wastes and sludges, such as sewage sludge or industrial effluent. Can be mobile in groundwater, so worth understanding.
Industrial:
factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
Household:
everyday domestic refuse. Decomposes and can generate landfill gas for a few decades after closure.
Inert:
builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.

Other historic landfill sites nearby

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.