Elsenham represents a joint venture project with Viridor, and is located 1 mile west of Elsenham, a village in Essex, close to Stansted Airport and the Hertfordshire border. It was previously worked for sand and gravel by Brett Aggregates. This site accepts both inert and non-hazardous reclamation material. It will be restored back to agricultural land after final mineral extraction has taken place.

The project

Once Brett Aggregates have completed mineral extraction on site, IVL will operate the site and complete the restoration works. It is estimated that 2,200,000 million tons of suitable inert and non-hazardous restoration material will be required to complete the project. The remediation process is divided into three stages:

• Create a base with in-situ London clay
• Create a sideliner bund, formed with London and boulder clay
• Create internal phase boundaries from engineered London or boulder clay

Licences and quality assurance

Elsenham holds a permit for accepting both inert and non-hazardous material; all restoration phases of the project are inspected and tested to ensure that they comply with the Construction Quality Assurance (CQA). Once the restoration works are completed, both leachate and gas monitoring boreholes will be drilled at various locations, with a target pad at the bottom made from baled tyres.

On completion of the project, a CQA validation report will be submitted to the Environment Agency, which will also serve as a permanent CQA record for this site.