THE FUTURE’S GREEN FOR STAFFS LANDFILL SITE

Restoration scheme returns Wyrley Grove to nature

Wyrley Grove, a 10-acre site at Gorsey Lane, Pelsall, which waste management company Cleansing Service Group (CSG) used as a landfill for industrial and commercial waste for 13 years, was declared full last year and closed.

Now contractors working for the Hampshire-based company have started work on a huge landscaping scheme which will see the Environment Agency licensed site, which lies alongside the SSSI-designated Cannock Extension Canal, turned into a wildlife haven and pasture for grazing sheep.

The site once formed part of the Wyrley Grove Colliery, which opened in 1857 and closed in 1952. The land used for waste disposal was the colliery’s washing pit and is surrounded by colliery spoil bunds which form a large void into which the waste has been tipped.

Before beginning landfill operations there, CSG progressively covered the entire site base with a plastic liner to prevent the escape of contaminants to land and groundwater. This is common practice now, but at the time it was the first UK landfill site to be lined in this way.

CSG called in award-winning environmental consultants White Young Green Environmental Ltd. to devise a land restoration scheme for the site in consultation and co-operation with Staffordshire County Council and the Environment Agency.

First stage has been to cap the site with plastic sheets which are being welded to the original bottom liner to enclose the waste in a leakproof plastic ‘envelope’. The whole site is then to be covered with 200,000 tonnes of sub and topsoil which will coat the landfill to a depth of one metre deep.

Hundreds of woodland trees will be planted, including oak, rowan, birch and willow, while other areas will be seeded for grassland.

A drainage system across the site will take water to a large, newly-created pond which is being designed to encourage wildlife to Wyrley Grove.

The scheme also includes a marshy area, which will be created and planted to encourage biodiversity, and a wildlife corridor to help species migrate across the site.

A gas extraction system has been installed across the site in order to collect flammable gases generated from the buried waste and pipe it to an on-site collection point, where it is converted into electricity and supplied to the National Grid. It is expected that this will continue for the next 12 years.

CSG managing director Paul Quigley said he hoped the restoration work would be completed by the end of the year.

“We’ve taken the best expert advice we could find, and worked closely with the relevant authorities, to ensure that what has been in effect a brownfield site since the 1850s will soon be green again and returned to its natural state.”