Lower Hare Landfill have applied to vary their environmental permit

Permit Number: EPR/LB3502HT/V002

  • We have received an application from GRS Stone Supplies Ltd (GRS) to vary its environmental permit for the Lower Hare Farm landfill site. This means the company has asked for our permission to make several changes to the permit.
  • Because there is strong public interest in this site, we will be consulting on the proposed changes.
  • We expect to open the consultation in September and will write to you again with details of how you can take part.

Background

On 3 April 2025, we issued GRS Stone Supplies Ltd with an environmental permit to operate an inert waste landfill site at Lower Hare Farm.

The company has been preparing the site for operation and has now applied to change some of the permit conditions.

The current permit allows the site to accept inert waste materials such as soils, stones, bricks, tiles and ceramics. These materials can come from sources including construction and demolition projects, and landscaping work in parks and gardens.

What changes are being proposed?

GRS has applied to make the following changes to its environmental permit:

  1. Move surface water monitoring location SW3 further upstream, closer to monitoring location SW4.
  2. Remove pre-operational condition (PO1) that required a report to be submitted to us about the sources of waste. This has been completed.
  3. Add a new pre-operational condition covering the use of flocculants to control suspended solids.
  4. Increase the site's annual tonnage limit from 150,000 tonnes to 250,000 tonnes.
  5. Introduce a manual turbidity monitoring method for daily suspended solids checks.
  6. Use real-time turbidity monitoring equipment and reduce laboratory analysis from daily to monthly. This reflects the impracticality of a five-working-day turnaround time for daily laboratory results.
  7. Update monitoring limits at location SW3 to reflect its proposed new position.
  8. Amend the compliance limit for nickel concentrations so it reflects background levels identified through monitoring undertaken before waste was imported to the site.

We will publish full details of these proposed changes, including GRS's reasons for requesting them, when the consultation opens.

What happens next?

As with the original permit application, we will consult on the application documents for at least six weeks.

We will consider every comment we receive alongside the technical evidence and use this information to help reach a draft decision.

If we conclude that the variation should be refused, GRS Stone Supplies Ltd has the right to appeal that decision.

If our draft decision is to issue the permit variation, we will consult again. This will give you the opportunity to comment on the draft permit conditions and see how we have considered the feedback received during the consultation.

We will contact you when the consultation opens and explain how you can take part.

If you have any accessibility requirements that could make it difficult to use our online consultation service, please contact us by email at DCISEnquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk or call our customer contact centre on 03708 506 506.

For more information about environmental permits, visit Check if you need an environmental permit - GOV.UK.

If you have any questions or would like to be added to the mailing list for this site, please email DCISEnquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk.