Landfill Check

Gravel Pits

HouseholdCommercial

Gravel Pits is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Colchester, Essex. It received household and commercial waste between 1956 and 1961, covering about 1.56 hectares. Reference EAHLD00482, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD00482
Site nameGravel Pits
AddressChapel Road, Stanway, Colchester
Site operatorColchester Borough Council
Licence holderNot recorded
Licence issuedNot recorded
Licence surrenderedNot recorded
First waste input31 December 1956
Last waste input31 December 1961
Area1.56 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteNot recorded
EA areaEastern AN
Grid reference595500, 224600

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

Boundary map

What these waste types mean

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.

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.