Landfill Check

Foundry Lane

IndustrialHouseholdInert

Foundry Lane is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Colchester, Essex. It received industrial, household and inert waste between 1958 and 1980, covering about 1.56 hectares. Reference EAHLD01202, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD01202
Site nameFoundry Lane
AddressFoundry Lane, Copford, Colchester
Site operatorJ Smith
Licence holderMr J Smith
Licence issued10 January 1979
Licence surrenderedNot recorded
First waste input31 December 1958
Last waste input31 December 1980
Area1.56 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteYes
EA areaEastern AN
Grid reference592900, 224100

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.
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.