Landfill Check

Saw Mills

Liquid / sludgeIndustrialHouseholdCommercial

Saw Mills is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Leiston, Suffolk. It received liquid/sludge, industrial, household and commercial waste between 1973 and 1981, covering about 8.82 hectares. Reference EAHLD03035, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD03035
Site nameSaw Mills
AddressWestleton
Site operatorSuffolk County Council
Licence holderBlyth Rural Distrcit Council
Licence issued18 November 1976
Licence surrendered31 December 1981
First waste input31 December 1973
Last waste input31 December 1981
Area8.82 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteYes
EA areaEastern AN
Grid reference645200, 269100

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.
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.