THREAT TO LANDFILL SITE

The news comes in a letter from Rupert Clubb, the Environment Agency's Sussex manager, stating it had refused the application for a pollution prevention and control permit at Beddingham.

Mr Clubb also revealed that the operating company had lodged an appeal with Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment.

However, if this is unsuccessful, the Environment Agency will serve a closure notice on the operator, setting the final date by which the site is able to accept waste.

Earlier this year in a Parliamentary answer to Mr Baker, Mrs Beckett said the Beddingham site had been turned down for a permit first because possible leachate from the landfill posed an unacceptable risk to groundwater in the surrounding area, and second because the site's liner system, which is designed to control the escape of leachate, required improvements.

She did add, however, that the site did not pose a significant risk to human health.

Said Mr Baker: 'Beddingham and Pebsham are the only two landfill sites remaining in East Sussex and take a variety of different types of waste from industrial to domestic waste.

'The Beddingham site was also used to dispose of cow carcases suspected of having BSE in the early 1990s and continues to be able to receive low-level radioactive material.

'We won't know for several months whether the Beddingham site will definitely be closing, but if it does, it will leave East Sussex County Council up the creek without a paddle.'