Former Railway Cutting
IndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
Former Railway Cutting is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Shefford, Central Bedfordshire. It received industrial, household, commercial and inert waste between 1970 and 1990, covering about 4.42 hectares. Reference EAHLD00980, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD00980 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Former Railway Cutting |
| Address | Hoo Farm, Meppershall, Bedfordshire |
| Site operator | Cutting Tipping Company |
| Licence holder | The Cutting Tipping Company |
| Licence issued | 1 September 1989 |
| Licence surrendered | 4 December 1990 |
| First waste input | 1 July 1970 |
| Last waste input | 4 July 1990 |
| Area | 4.42 ha |
| Gas control | Yes |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Central AN |
| Grid reference | 515100, 238000 |
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.
- Household:
- everyday domestic refuse. Decomposes and can generate landfill gas for a few decades after closure.
- Commercial:
- waste from shops and offices — paper, packaging, food. Similar profile to household waste, usually less of it.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Railway CuttingIndustrialHouseholdCommercial
- The Airman Public HouseIndustrialHouseholdInert
- Chapel FarmWaste types not recorded
- Campton RoadWaste types not recorded
- Upton End FarmInert
- Sand PitInert
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.