Have your say over plans to fill two partially flooded quarry voids near Bedford.
The Environment Agency (EA) is seeking views on a proposal to infill the two voids south of Bedford with excavation and construction materials.
London Brick extracted clay from the site, known as Elstow South, between 1949 and 1979, which left two partially flooded quarry voids (east lake and west lake).
Consent has been given to restore the site by landfilling – as was used at Elstow North between 1964 and 1988 – but Anti-Waste Ltd intends to infill the site with excavation waste materials.
The proposal claims the excavation wastes are of lower polluting potential than those infilled at the adjacent landfill site.
The qualifying materials include rocks and soils, ceramics or concrete materials, furnace slags, and ash.
The proposal said the majority of the materials to be landfilled are expected to be soil, stones, and concrete-based construction materials.
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The work will include dewatering the two existing lakes, starting with east lake first, and installing a suitable engineered barrier.
For the purposes of development the site is classified as brownfield, previously developed land. The finished landscaping will ‘maximise’ the future use by the operator/landowner.
The EA said it wants to listen to the views of others to help it to take account of concerns, or local environmental factors, that it might not be otherwise aware of.
Comments can be made via the EA’s online consultation tool, or emails can be sent to PSCpublicresponse@environment-agency.gov.uk, reference EPR/SP3100SR/A001.
The public consultation runs until August 29,2022.
