Information about the Dorket Head landfill site in Arnold, Nottinghamshire – updated 7 May 2013.
Dorket Head landfill site is operated by FCC Environment, formerly WRG (Waste Recycling Group). The landfill has been active since 1993 and is located in the Arnold area of Nottinghamshire. The site accepts and disposes of household, industrial and commercial waste. No hazardous waste is permitted at this site.
We are the primary regulator and are responsible for granting or refusing environmental permits, setting the conditions and making sure that permit holder complies with them.
During 2012, we received 965 complaints from Arnold residents regarding odour from Dorket Head Landfill. We wrote to FCC to tell them that the level of pollution was unacceptable and that they needed to take action to resolve this.
FCC committed to implementing improvements to reduce odour. These included capping areas of the site, installing further gas extraction wells, putting hoods over monitoring points and undertaking weekly site surveys.
Since the changes on site, we have undertaken odour assessments. This involves pairs of officers attending locations around the area with monitoring equipment to assess the impact these site improvements have had on odour. For the first two weeks of this assessment period we attended regardless of weather conditions. We are now focussing our assessments during times when the weather could give rise to complaints.
We continue to liaise with our partners from Gedling Borough Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, Vernon Coaker MP and Councillors Michael Payne and John Clarke about the issue.
We have recently received reports of litter coming from the site. We have investigated these, which resulted in FCC removing the debris from The Hobbucks and making operational changes on the site.
The number of odour complaints about the site since the opening of Cell 6, can be seen in the graph below.
On the 5 March 2013, the Environment Agency received a large number of calls regarding odours in the Arnold area. Following an investigation by our staff, and with the co-operation of Gedling Borough Council’s Environmental Health Department, we identified that the source of much of the odour across Arnold was from the spreading of poultry manure near Woodborough. The reports linked to this have not been added to the graph.
Reporting odour
It is important that local residents continue to inform us and/or FCC if they are affected by odours arising from Dorket Head.
In the first instance please contact FCC Environment to report a problem:
FCC Dorket Head Landfill Site
0115 967 3446
FCC out of hours number
01302 553 461
If the intensity and duration of odour is such that it is offensive to you or is affecting how you use your home or local amenity, please call our free 24 hour incident line number:
0800 807 060
When reporting odour incidents to us please use the following scale to categorise the intensity:
0 - No odour (no odour can be detected)
1 - Very faint odour (only detectable if you specifically sniff for it)
2 - Faint odour (detectable if you casually sniff for it)
3 - Distinct odour (detectable by just standing there normally)
4 - Strong odour (unavoidable odour)
5 - Very strong odour (likely to leave lingering smell on clothes, or lingering taste)
6 - Extremely strong odour (likely to causes immediate physical symptoms such as nausea, sore throat and headaches)
To ensure we can act on incidents in an appropriate and timely manner, please do not use social media sites to report these to us. Unlike our dedicated incident reporting line, these accounts are not monitored 24 hours a day.
For reporting odour that is less significant or if you have a general enquiry about our regulation of the site, please use our dedicated Dorket Head email:
We are not able to attend all reports that are received. Reporting odours through the correct channels however will allow us to better prioritise and target when we attend reports of significant odour.
Providing feedback
It may not be possible to provide individual feedback to all reports we receive through our incident hotline. However, we will endeavour to make sure that our website is regularly updated with details of any findings or actions taken by us.
FCC has a dedicated page on their website about the site:
Further information
It is not fair or reasonable to expect no odours from this landfill site. However, we will continue to ensure that FCC takes the necessary steps to reduced odour to a level that does not cause annoyance.
If members of the public have concerns over the impact of landfills on their health they should contact their GP.
Contact us
If you have a general enquiry or queries about the site then please email us at:
Please do not use this email address for reporting significant odours.
We aim to provide a full response to queries within 10 days. Our Customer Charter provides further information on this.
Other Information
We have included below some information which you may find useful
