Press release - 15 Jan 2009

End of an era as landfill site closes for business

Restoration work is pressing ahead at a Hampshire landfill site after it officially accepted its last delivery of waste.

An estimated one million tonnes of waste – the equivalent of 143,000 unladen London Routemaster buses - has been disposed of at the Fair Oak Landfill Site since it opened for business in 2000.

Up to 200,000 tonnes of material, including builders and commercial waste, has arrived by lorry annually from a wide area including Portsmouth, London and the New Forest.

The 35-acre site, next to the East Horton Golf Club, received its last waste delivery in December and work is now underway to restore it to natural land.

The work includes covering the waste with a metre of soil, followed by a plastic membrane and then a further metre of earth. Grass seed will be sown in the spring.

Fair Oak is operated by SITA UK, the recycling and waste management company, and employs six people. Three will stay on-site while restoration work is completed while the remaining staff will be redeployed to other SITA sites in Hampshire.

Matt Hughes, Site Manager, described the closure of Fair Oak as the "end of an era."

He added: "I’ve been here since Day One and I regard it as my baby.

"It’s unusual in this business to manage one site from start to finish and I know Fair Oak like the back of my hand.

"Two of the staff who started with me – James Nutley and Michael Roberts – are still here and we work together as a close-knit team. It will be sad to see it end."

Mike Garfield, SITA UK’s Area Manager, said the company had worked hard to establish a good relationship with local residents. "The work now underway will restore the site to a very attractive area of greenspace," he added.