The Society has updated its document published in the Autumn about the former landfill site covering much of the site now being promoted for “Birchall Garden Suburb’. The original document (available on this site) was submitted into the WHBC Local Plan consultation which closed in October. It was sent separately to relevant people within WHBC but no acknowledgement or comment was ever received. This development is being jointly promoted to East Herts and is also part of their draft Local Plan consultation. To that end we have updated our original document and submitted it to their consultation, now also closed. The key difference being the document now includes photos dating back to the 70’s and 80’s showing the vast scale of the landfill dump and the waste that was being buried in the ground there. It  had of course already been operating as a landfill dump for some 50 years before these pictures were taken, taking in waste from across London. We will endeavour to show all these pictures separately on this site in due course, they are available under an open licence and can be published freely. They paint an informative picture. The updated full document is available by clicking on the thumbnail image below. It may be of interest and concern to residents.

In the paper we also question whether this development proposal is appropriate for the area considering its history as a landfill site with many categories waste being dumped there over many decades. We ask why this site is favoured over other parts of the borough that would have no such concerning history?