Landfill Check

West of Wolsingham

IndustrialInert

West of Wolsingham is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Wolsingham, County Durham. It received industrial and inert waste between 1971 and 1982, covering about 3.79 hectares. Reference EAHLD05907, October 2025 data revision.

Full record

EA referenceEAHLD05907
Site nameWest of Wolsingham
AddressLand Between Westfie, House and Hare Law, Wolsingham, Bishop Auckland, County Durham
Site operatorWeardale Steel ( Wolsingham ) Limited
Licence holderWeardale Steel (Wolsingham) Limited
Licence issued15 April 1977
Licence surrendered31 March 1992
First waste input30 September 1971
Last waste input31 December 1982
Area3.79 ha
Gas controlNot recorded
Leachate containmentNot recorded
Licensed siteYes
EA areaNorthumbria NE
Grid reference406200, 537100

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.
Inert:
builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.

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.