Why did the Bluebell Railway have to pay landfill tax on the material removed from Imberhorne cutting ?

[Justin Smith]

Bit of a niche question this !
When the Bluebell Railway cleared the Imberhome cutting tip (i.e. waste material that was already landfilled....) why did they have to pay landfill tax on it ? ! ?

 

[Gloster]

Bit of a niche question this !
When the Bluebell Railway cleared the Imberhome cutting tip (i.e. waste material that was already been landfilled....) why did they have to pay landfill tax on it ? ! ?

Presumably because it had to go as landfill somewhere else.

 

[JKF]

Landfill tax is to encourage other means of disposal or reuse. The material in the tip wouldn’t have had tax paid when originally deposited as it preceded the introduction of charges. If it had been inert material they may have been able to place it somewhere else on their land and avoided charges, presumably the removed waste was unsuitable for this.

I think I recall that some material was used to fill in the triangle for the former junction to Ardingley, possibly from the clean ‘capping layer’ that would have covered the landfill material.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Bit of a niche question this !
When the Bluebell Railway cleared the Imberhome cutting tip (i.e. waste material that was already landfilled....) why did they have to pay landfill tax on it ? ! ?

Think it's Imberhorne. Domestic waste material was dumped there at the High Grove tip by West Sussex County Council in the late 1960s / early 1970's, and by the time it was decided, a couple of decades or so later, that the waste in the cutting would need removing as part of a scheme to get the Bluebell Railway (back) into East Grinstead, Landfill Tax was now very much a thing, and the quoted removal cost was reportedly £25 per ton, but about to increase to £90 per ton, this due to the scheduled ending of a Landfill Tax Exemption Scheme in April 2012. Believe the excavated material was mostly moved by rail to Oxfordshire.

 

[Justin Smith]

Landfill tax is to encourage other means of disposal or reuse. The material in the tip wouldn’t have had tax paid when originally deposited as it preceded the introduction of charges. If it had been inert material they may have been able to place it somewhere else on their land and avoided charges, presumably the removed waste was unsuitable for this.

I think I recall that some material was used to fill in the triangle for the former junction to Ardingley, possibly from the clean ‘capping layer’ that would have covered the landfill material.

I understand the principle of the landfill tax (though taxing the responsible disposal of waste was always going increase to fly tipping, which it has big time) but I cannot see how it was considered justifiable to tax the landfilling of waste that was already landfilled. It was effectively just moving it from one landfill to another ! They'd tax breathing if they could get away with it !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jun 2026 ==

Think it's Imberhorne.

It may well be, I was having trouble reading my small written addition to my Cobbs rail atlas !

(Now corrected in the thread title)

 

[SECR 65]

Yes, Imberhorne.

Much of the material was removed by rail, either by mainline moves, or by steam locomotives at the south end. Track was laid from both ends, I think.

 

[Gloster]

But where do you draw the line? Presumably the rules were reasonably well-defined and covered all reasonably likely eventualities. Once you start saying, “Well, we’ll make an exception here,” you get other people demanding exceptions and the whole lot ends up in the courts at massive cost to all. It is just the Bluebell’s bad luck that there wasn’t already an exemption for what they were doing. (I do not know the details of the case, just general principles.)

 

[Justin Smith]

But where do you draw the line? Presumably the rules were reasonably well-defined and covered all reasonably likely eventualities. Once you start saying, “Well, we’ll make an exception here,” you get other people demanding exceptions and the whole lot ends up in the courts at massive cost to all. It is just the Bluebell’s bad luck that there wasn’t already an exemption for what they were doing. (I do not know the details of the case, just general principles.)

I'd have thought it's a similar principle as older locos having "grandfather rights" to use the network despite maybe having pollution levels which are not legal these days. It's basically that stuff should not be imposed retrospectively, there's an argument that they effectively retrospectively forced the Bluebell Railway to pay tax (as there was no landfill tax when the material was originally landfilled and it was just being moved from one landfill to another).

 

[SECR 65]

I suppose, at the end of the day, you're still moving waste, though???

 

[35B]

I'd have thought it's a similar principle as older locos having "grandfather rights" to use the network despite maybe having pollution levels which are not legal these days. It's basically that stuff should not be imposed retrospectively, there's an argument that they effectively retrospectively forced the Bluebell Railway to pay tax (as there was no landfill tax when the material was originally landfilled and it was just being moved from one landfill to another).

It was new landfill, requiring movement of waste from where it was securely and, as far as anyone knew, permanently, dumped to new locations. The tax is, as I understand, chargeable on delivery, and if Bluebell hadn't tried to excavate the cutting, there would have been no landfill generated. That is very different to "grandfather rights" on traction, which are about existing in service assets not being additionally taxed.

The key point for the Bluebell was that there were tax credits which ran out. They were able to deliver the clearance under the old regime, before the cost rose dramatically.

 

[Starmill]

Fly-tipped waste is also charged if a local authority removes it from wherever it has been fly-tipped, causing danger to wildlife and people, and the only suitable option is to have it sent to landfill again. Obviously in that case public funds are being paid over to different public funds.

A lot of waste goes to a euphemistically named waste to energy plant instead.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Much of the material was removed by rail, either by mainline moves, or by steam locomotives at the south end. Track was laid from both ends, I think.

Have seen pics of visiting LMS Ivatt tank engine (number 41312) shifting material from the Imberhorne tip to the Ardlingly Spur at Horsted Keynes (via Kingscote) in June 2005. Also a Class 73 electro-diesel loco 'Perseverance' standing at Horsted Keynes station in 2009 with wagons attached. Think Class 66 locos were used for shifting material at the East Grinstead end.

 

[SECR 65]

Have seen pics of visiting LMS Ivatt tank engine (number 41312) shifting material from the Imberhorne tip to the Ardlingly Spur at Horsted Keynes (via Kingscote) in June 2005. Also a Class 73 electro-diesel loco 'Perseverance' standing at Horsted Keynes station in 2009 with wagons attached. Think Class 66 locos were used for shifting material at the East Grinstead end.

AFAIK it was the result of this massive process that led to GBRF 66739 being named 'Bluebell Railway'.

 

[JKF]

Have seen pics of visiting LMS Ivatt tank engine (number 41312) shifting material from the Imberhorne tip to the Ardlingly Spur at Horsted Keynes (via Kingscote) in June 2005. Also a Class 73 electro-diesel loco 'Perseverance' standing at Horsted Keynes station in 2009 with wagons attached. Think Class 66 locos were used for shifting material at the East Grinstead end.

That was probably the ‘clean’ material which they were able to deposit in the Ardingley Jn triangle, I think they used this to level up the land there. No point paying to send clean material to landfill when you can make use of it.

 

[zwk500]

Have seen pics of visiting LMS Ivatt tank engine (number 41312) shifting material from the Imberhorne tip to the Ardlingly Spur at Horsted Keynes (via Kingscote) in June 2005. Also a Class 73 electro-diesel loco 'Perseverance' standing at Horsted Keynes station in 2009 with wagons attached. Think Class 66 locos were used for shifting material at the East Grinstead end.

The Bluebell Railway has a rather thorough Documentation of the Extension project: https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/extprog.html

Class 66's were the main traction for removing landfill and delivering ballast, although a pair of Class 73s was used for a trial run of the shunting arrangements.

I'd have thought it's a similar principle as older locos having "grandfather rights" to use the network despite maybe having pollution levels which are not legal these days. It's basically that stuff should not be imposed retrospectively, there's an argument that they effectively retrospectively forced the Bluebell Railway to pay tax (as there was no landfill tax when the material was originally landfilled and it was just being moved from one landfill to another).

It's far more comparable to wanting to do work to a house built 50 years ago. If you leave things as they were, you don't have to upgrade it to the new standards. But if you want to change things, any new work is done to current regs.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Jun 2026 ==

That was probably the ‘clean’ material which they were able to deposit in the Ardingley Jn triangle, I think they used this to level up the land there. No point paying to send clean material to landfill when you can make use of it.

It was, according to their website: https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/extprog_arch5.html

21 February 2005​

...
The first section of infill, on this side of the bridge, is not actually part of the main tip, and is sandstone and soil believed to have been excavated during the conversion of the former railway cutting towards Tunbridge Wells into the East Grinstead bypass. It is planned to relocate this material elsewhere on the Bluebell for engineering purposes, building up the embankment towards Ardingly which was partially excavated many years ago.

Note that the road referred to is now the A22, 'Beeching Way'.