Regulation: a failure of control

By Richard North - June 2, 2026

Nestled in the Telegraph today is a lengthy and instantly forgettable report under the title “The ballooning landfill sites making lives hell”.

The sub-head informs us that “Residents in Cumbria report eggy stench waking them at night as rubbish from Scotland, Wales and the Midlands is ‘rammed in’ to local tips”, which captures some of the flavour of the problem.

To charge that the report is “instantly forgettable”, though, is to confront the reality that effectively the same report was filed on 25 March of this year by the BBC, making little impression at the time and having no lasting effect.

The Telegraph version starts with the usual soft-focus colour writing so favoured by female reporters (of both sexes), in this case Lily Shanagher, who tells us that: “When Rachel and Glen Shaw moved into their new home it felt like a dream come true – a cottage in a forest clearing with a big back garden for their lamb and dog to roam”.

Then, we are told, “the smell began”. The stench of rotten eggs and chemicals began wafting through the windows and vents of their property and newly pregnant Mrs Shaw feared for the health of her unborn baby”.

As Shanagher drip-feeds us information, we learn that the smell had not always been there. It had started when a formerly publicly owned landfill next to the Shaws’ home had been taken over by Seletia, “a private company” in the summer of 2025. It was then that residents noticed the height of the rubbish had grown, swelling beyond the permitted limit.

At this point, when we still haven’t been told any real detail about this landfill site, we are introduced to the idea that “this pattern is being repeated across Britain, with a link to an earlier report from September last year, which regales us with the headline “Big stink over rotten egg smell blighting town for years”.

The sub-head, though, doesn’t immediately pin the blame on a local landfill site (this one in Darlington), as it concedes that a “Long list of suspected culprits for foul odour over Darlington include landfill site, biogas plant and sewage treatment works”.

However, the text tells us that the trouble began in September 2023 when the “sulphur-like smell” began to spread. The “aroma”, it transpires, was eventually traced by the Environment Agency to decomposing waste at a quarry-turned-landfill site on the outskirts of Newton Aycliffe, a town just north of Darlington.

It is this example, plus the Cumbria site – which is eventually identified as the Hespin Wood landfill site in Rockcliffe, Cumbria – and others discussed later on, which prompts Shanagher to offer the issue-illiterate assertion that the core problem is that “private waste management firms are falling foul of Environment Agency (EA) standards”.

Despite the length of the article, this is where it starts to go badly wrong as it points the reader(s) in entirely the wrong direction. Although the headline issue here is the “bad eggs” smell, this tells us that there are significant hydrogen sulphide emissions which are indicative of poor tip management – where there are also likely to be other problems.

It is not so much “standards” – as in emission limits for what is a highly toxic gas – that should be the focus, as compliance with the operating conditions. By the time you are actually detecting significant H2S emissions, it’s too late. You have a serious problem which is going to require expensive and complex remediation measures, which take time to have any effect.

The key to successful emissions control, therefore, is prevention. In the UK, the Environment Agency – which is responsible for the regulation of landfill sites – operates a licensing/permit system which empowers it to lay down highly specific, prescriptive, and legally binding operating conditions.

Working with a comprehensive set of guidance notes, day-to-day management is not left to the operators’ discretion.

Instead, the Environment Agency (EA) embeds strict engineering and operational parameters directly into each site’s custom Environmental Permit and its mandatory Working Plan or Operating Techniques which, if followed, will ensure trouble-free operation. A well-managed landfill site is usually inoffensive, and even close neighbours may not realise that there is one in operation.

Furthermore, this system comes at a price. The EA will impose a baseline permit application fee of up to £19,000 plus additional specialist technical assessment charges, such as a landfill gas management plan, which can add another £6,000 to the bill.

And it doesn’t stop there. Once the permit is granted, operators must pay an annual fee every April to fund the regulator’s compliance inspections, air monitoring, and audit reviews.

The baseline cost for an active site such as the Hespin Wood landfill would have been between £8,000 and £15,000 per year. If there is any slippage in operational standards, and the site is generating massive community complaints due to bad H2S emissions, or fails compliance audits, the EA can increase the annual subsistence fee up to 150-300 percent of the baseline to cover the cost of extra regulatory interventions.

If the operator wants to vary the conditions of the permit, for instance by expanding the boundaries of the site, opening new cells, or changing their waste acceptance rules, they must apply for a permit variation. This costs roughly 50-85 percent of the original application fee.

There is also a transfer fee if the site changes hands. But before the EA will approve the transfer of an active or closed landfill permit, the new operator must legally prove they have Financial Provision in place.

This is a legally binding financial security (usually a massive bank guarantee, escrow account, or specialist insurance trust) that ensures there is enough money to maintain the landfill, manage H2S/methane, and pump leachate for up to 30 to 60 years after the landfill closes. Setting up or inheriting this bond can cost hundreds of thousands (or millions) of pounds in capital backing.

During the operation of sites, the EA can direct operations with specific enforcement notices under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR) and can strip the operator’s right to accept waste while legally binding them to maintain environmental controls.

If an operator is a persistent poor performer or completely ignores compliance conditions, the EA can issue a Full or Partial Revocation Notice and, as a last resort, can revoke the permit or initiate a closure notice.

And, if a landfill permit is revoked or closed, and the operator collapses financially, the EA can draw directly upon the mandatory Financial Provision, (the bank bond or escrow pot established when the permit was first set up or transferred) to hire contractors to run the active gas flares and leachate pumps themselves.

Where, in the general political discourse, we hear so much about “red tape” and over-regulation, this range of powers might be cited as a classic example. But the upside of this is that their strength and scope gives the EA almost unfettered control over landfill sites.

In the Shanagher piece, we are told that the EA issued an enforcement notice to Seletia in October 2025, alleging several breaches including raising the tipping to at least 10 metres above pre-contour levels, littering and leachate. The EA later suspended Seletia from depositing waste and ordered the company to remove the excess rubbish by April 22, which Seletia has appealed.

But the conclusion from this is that the action taken by the EA was too little, too late. Despite its extensive powers and funding from the industry it regulates, the Agency has a reputation for sitting on its hands – as it has done with the water industry – until the situation is out of control and the damage is done.

Yet, in all the steady flow of heart-wrenching stories about the hardship and inconvenience caused to local residents and others, the idle hacks always seem to give the EA a free pass.

The same goes for MPs. Tim Farron MP says that waste management sites across the country are allowed to breach restrictions and remain relatively unchecked,

He is campaigning for an all-party parliamentary group to tackle waste crime, and claims of Seletia that is has “clearly acted in flagrant disregard of their planning restrictions and environmental restrictions. And the impact on the local community is horrific”.

“No one loves living near a landfill site, but up until relatively recently it was not a major antisocial presence in the local community and people didn’t feel the need to complain about it particularly”, he adds, then going on to say that “the change in owners and their change in activity on site absolutely has caused enormous outrage and is justified”.

Not for one moment does he question the performance of the EA in what must be regarded as an inexcusable failure of the administrative state. It is one thing parliament giving officials extensive regulatory powers, but what is the point of that if they then do not assess whether those powers are being used effectively?