IN THE distance, trucks can be seen making their way into the site to dump their loads.
It is an unwelcome yet familiar sight to residents on the boundaries of Welbeck, one of Britain’s largest landfill and reclamation sites, between Normanton and Stanley, near Wakefield.
For years residents fought to stop it going ahead. Many were anxious it would harm their health and ruin the charm of their community.
Now research published in the British Medical Journal today has found a slight increase in the risk of birth defects to babies born near a landfill site. Cases of babies born with low birth weights are five per cent higher near landfill sites.
Yesterday there was concern at the findings, but locals were not surprised. They have long feared the worst.
Sheila O’Shaughnessy, of St John’s Crescent, off Wakefield Road, Normanton, who lives with her daughter, two grandsons aged 11 and nine and four-year-old granddaughter, said she was worried.
“You don’t know what effect it will have, children are smelling the same smells as we are, so yes, you are concerned for your children and grandchildren.
“The children like walking in the fields and playing in the grass. We still go out but not in the tip area.”
Welbeck, managed by the Waste Recycling Group plc, opened as a landfill site in 1998 and has permission to dump 600,000 tonnes of household, industrial and commercial waste a year.
Previously it was derelict land but has been used for a number of uses including quarry waste disposal and sand and gravel excavation.
It operates seven days a week, and yesterday there was a steady stream of trucks in and out, travelling up winding roads across the undulating land to dump waste in the heart of the tip.
Barbara Ward, of Wakefield Road, Normanton, said there vehicles were going in and out of the site all day adding: “The smell sometimes when the wind is in this direction is quite strong."
She isn’t surprised at the report findings, saying: “We don’t think it has affected us healthwise yet – but it isn’t a thing you want on your doorstep.”
Her sister-in-law Ann Ward, who lives in Greenbank Road, Altofts, said that she too could sometimes smell the tip’s stench.
Last year she said the area was plagued by bluebottles, another feared health hazard.
Another resident Shirley Taylor, of South Street, Normanton, agrees the area has been plagued by bluebottles since Welbeck opened.
She says before the site was used as a tip she and her family would regularly go for walks on the tip site on a Sunday afternoon.
But she added: “People can still use it but it is not as nice.”
joanne.ginley@ypn.co.uk