Highside Waste Disposal Site
IndustrialHouseholdCommercial
Highside Waste Disposal Site is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Shildon, County Durham. It received industrial, household and commercial waste between 1945 and 1978, covering about 0.65 hectares. Reference EAHLD05434, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD05434 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Highside Waste Disposal Site |
| Address | Heighington, Newton Aycliffe, County Durham |
| Site operator | Durham County Council |
| Licence holder | Weardale Steel |
| Licence issued | 9 June 1977 |
| Licence surrendered | 1 July 1987 |
| First waste input | 31 December 1945 |
| Last waste input | 31 December 1978 |
| Area | 0.65 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Dales NE |
| Grid reference | 423900, 522700 |
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.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- High Side TipWaste types not recorded
- Redworth FieldsInert
- Redworth FieldsInert
- Redworth FieldsInert
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.