Walleys Quarry: Family can stay in home after landfill emissions victory

The mother of a boy with breathing problems believes she will be able to remain in her home near a landfill site after a successful legal fight to reduce gas emissions.

Rebecca Currie went to the High Court to argue hydrogen sulphide (H2S) from Walleys Quarry, Staffordshire, had worsened his condition.

The Environment Agency has now been told it must impose stricter controls.

Ms Currie said: "I had to fight and I didn't give up the fight until I won."

Speaking to BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour, she said her son, Mathew, was born with a chronic lung disease and a consultant at the Royal Stoke Hospital had told her gases from the landfill site were likely to be making it worse.

"I was just heartbroken," she told the programme.

"All I kept thinking was I've taken my baby home and I've let him be poisoned. When you take your children home it should be their safe place."

'Like a gas chamber'

She said the problem started getting worse from January 2021, when the gases from the site became "absolutely horrendous".

"It was like a gas chamber, there's no other word for it, I'd walk in Matthew's bedroom and it was like a brick wall hitting you of the toxic gases." she said.

They live approximately 400m (1,312 ft) away from the landfill site and she said they tried taping up doors and blocking sinks, but she did not want to move home and leave her family, who helped her care for Matthew.

"Moving wasn't really an option, if I were to move away from my support bubble I would suffer mentally" she said.

After talking to her brother, she said she decided to approach a solicitor instead.

The High Court said "real and significant change" at Walleys Quarry was required "as a matter of urgency"

After after a two-day hearing, the High Court agreed there was "a direct effect on Mathew's home, family life and private life from adverse effects of severe environmental pollution".

It ordered the Environment Agency to take "effective measures" to reduce the smell and the gas emissions from the landfill site.

Ms Currie said: "I didn't have a choice. If I can't help my own child, nobody is going to help him, so I just carried on fighting and fighting for him."

She added: "Hopefully we can stay here now, because hopefully Mathew has managed to stop the stench and we're not going to be forced out of our own home."

When asked if she compared herself to Erin Brockovich, she said: "I need to watch this film because everybody is on about this film to me."

Mathew Richards, who lives about half a mile from Walleys Quarry, was born with chronic lung disease

The Environment Agency is considering an appeal against part of the High Court ruling.

"We will continue to use our regulatory powers to require Walleys Quarry Ltd to bring hydrogen sulphide emissions under control," it said.

Walleys Quarry Ltd said it noted the judgement and would take advice on what it means in practice "given significant changes have been in progress for some time".