Removal & Decommissioning
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Britteco removes, replaces and cleans oil and fuel tanks for Weald farms, estates and port businesses in Lewes, Uckfield, Hastings and Newhaven. Our engineers travel from our Banbury base, and each visit is planned to a fixed date.
Inland East Sussex is largely off the gas grid. Wealden district is around 80% rural and roughly 30,000 homes there have no mains gas. The 2021 Census found 11.1% of Wealden households heating with oil alone, against 5.4% for the county. Farms, estates, village halls and rural businesses around Heathfield, Crowborough and Uckfield depend on kerosene and red diesel stored on site.
Rural tanks like these are often decades old: single-skin plastic gone brittle in the sun, or steel rusting at the base, frequently sited close to a hedge, ditch or stream. When a tank like that starts to weep, the usual answer is to remove it and fit a bunded replacement.
On the coast the work changes. The Port of Newhaven handles the Dieppe ferry, freight and the Rampion offshore wind base, and businesses around the harbour keep diesel and waste oil. Hospitals, schools and council buildings in Brighton and Hove, Eastbourne and Hastings may still run oil boilers or standby generators, and Rye sits on the fringe of Romney Marsh.
Most East Sussex jobs swap an old tank for a new one, so we plan around keeping fuel available.
Removal and replacement lead, with other services close behind.
Run out of heating oil or diesel in East Sussex?
24/7 emergency heating oil, kerosene and diesel delivery from 100 litres, including nights, weekends and bank holidays.
Most of East Sussex sits in the Environment Agency’s Solent and South Downs area, which covers the Ouse, the Cuckmere and the East Sussex Chalk. The eastern Rother valley, towards Rye, falls under the Kent, South London and East Sussex area. The chalk under the South Downs supplies public drinking water, so oil escaping from a tank can affect far more than the field it sits in.
Any East Sussex business keeping over 201 litres of oil is bound by the Control of Pollution (Oil Storage) (England) Regulations 2001. The tank needs secondary containment of at least 110% of its capacity, and GPP2 guidance advises keeping tanks well away from drains, ditches and watercourses. Older single-skin tanks rarely meet either.
We are OFTEC registered and work to ISO 9001:2015 and CHAS standards. When we remove or replace a tank you receive the Waste Transfer or Consignment Note and a Certificate of Disposal, the records an insurer or buyer will ask for.
Coastal towns and inland market towns alike.
If it is single-skin with no bund, it falls short of current rules and poses a pollution risk. We can move the new tank to a safer spot when we replace it, keeping it clear of the ditch and any field drains.
Usually. Our vehicles and hoses can work at a distance, and tanks can be cut into sections where a lift is impossible. Tell us about the access when you get in touch.
If the tank is above ground, removal is simplest. A buried tank under a path or extension can be decommissioned with foam fill instead, which avoids digging up the ground.
If it is clean we transfer it to your new tank. If it is contaminated with water or sludge, we pump it out and dispose of it as waste with a Consignment Note.
Mainly we serve businesses, but we can also replace a domestic oil tank for a Weald home. Read more on our page for homeowners.
Counties bordering East Sussex.
Tell us where the tank is and what shape it is in. We will plan the removal or replacement and give you a date.
