Traffic concerns raised over plans to extend landfill site outside Peterborough village

Traffic concerns have been raised over plans to extend a landfill site on the outskirts of Peterborough.

Eyebury Road, where the facility is based, would struggle to cope with any more HGV movements, the council says.

Biffa Waste Services, which runs the existing site just south of Eye, has applied to add an eastern extension which would be built on the area known as Willow Hall Quarry.

This would process 220,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste per year.

The company says the expected number of daily HGV trips would continue at the present rate of 180 two-way trips per day while smaller lorries for maintenance and deliveries would come and go on an ad hoc basis.

But Peterborough City Council (PCC) says that Eyebury Road is “unsuitable” to take on the “additional HGV traffic" it says is "likely to be generated" from the scheme.

The plans could also have an impact on the “safety and free flow of traffic on the adjoining public highway”, it adds in planning documents. Eyebury Road meets the A47 (Thorney Road) in Eye.

PCC’s planning committee, made up of councillors, will vote on Biffa Waste Services’s proposals on Tuesday (20th February), but council officers have recommended it turns them down.

This is largely due to traffic concerns, but also because plans don’t “demonstrate clear and convincing justification” for the “harm” it would cause to the setting of the Bar Pastures monument.

This is an ancient burial mound which lies next to the nearby Bar Pasture Farm.

Biffa Waste Services says that its planned extension will help “maintain Eye Landfill’s long-term role in supporting its waste transfer, recycling and recovery operations” and provide “important landfill capacity in the region”.

The scheme will also allow them to extend their existing “wildlife corridor”, a designated space blocked off from human activities, the company adds in planning documents.

It has waited almost two years for its application to be determined, having submitted it to the council in May 2022.