The Swale
Inert
The Swale is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Woodbridge, Suffolk. It received inert waste between 1980 and 1996, covering about 10.62 hectares. Reference EAHLD01372, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD01372 |
|---|---|
| Site name | The Swale |
| Address | The Swale, Brightwell |
| Site operator | Wilding and Smith |
| Licence holder | Wilding and Smith |
| Licence issued | 10 July 1980 |
| Licence surrendered | Not recorded |
| First waste input | 31 December 1980 |
| Last waste input | 31 December 1996 |
| Area | 10.62 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | Eastern AN |
| Grid reference | 625600, 244700 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Waldringfield Landfill Site ( Phases 1-5 )Waste types not recorded
- Waldringfield Landfill Site (Phases 6-9)Inert
- Caravan SiteWaste types not recorded
- Foxall RoadSpecialIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- Foxhall RoadIndustrialHouseholdCommercial
- SandpitIndustrialCommercialInert
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.