Topsham Playing Field
IndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
Topsham Playing Field is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Topsham, Devon. It received industrial, household, commercial and inert waste on dates not recorded, covering about 3.47 hectares. Reference EAHLD30048, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD30048 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Topsham Playing Field |
| Address | Topsham, Exeter |
| Site operator | Not recorded |
| Licence holder | Devon County Council |
| Licence issued | Not recorded |
| Licence surrendered | Not recorded |
| First waste input | Not recorded |
| Last waste input | Not recorded |
| Area | 3.47 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Not recorded |
| EA area | Devon SW |
| Grid reference | 296100, 88300 |
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.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
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.