When first embarking on the odyssey that was determining what was poisoning the wildfowl at Rattlechain lagoon, what struck me most was the history of the company behind it. I say “the history” because as I would soon determine through my own investigations, most of this “local history” was in fact fake history , and even worse present day propaganda.
There is no doubt that Albright and Wilson in Oldbury made no secret of blowing their own trumpet locally, and had many political friends who gave them opportunities to prosper. A so called “residents” group attended by a couple of councillors and people from organisations whom they at from time to time have donated money to can hardly be said to be representative of scrutiny as to what they actually make and do down Trinity Street way.
Much of “100 years of phosphorus making” , the Centennial history of the Quaker firm is a manufactured fanciful account of the Albright and Wilson families up to 1951. Much of this has since been regurgitated, though crucially never really questioned nor examined by local historians who have written their own books tying in recollections of a few people with archive photographs. Now I have no problem with this, as it can be challenged, but when in one instance Albright and Wilson themselves paid for the print run of a local history book and were allowed to put forward an advertising piece on their present day activities written by their public relations officer, I have a very big problem with that being called “local history”. It is propaganda product placement not history, and a one sided unchallenged view.
Recently it appears that once again the name Albright and Wilson has been regurgitated in the form of a lottery funded project called “Made in Oldbury”. Once again the same names appear to be at the fore and it also appears to be a politically supported idea with Sandwell councils socialists on board.
Now I have no issue with all industrial activity in Oldbury or many of its firms. But I do have a massive problem with eulogising a company as poison crooked and polluting as that founded in Trinity Street, not least as for much of the latter half of the Twentieth Century they were not even British owned. First the American Tenneco, and then of course taken over and consumed by French Rhodia and now Belgian Solvay.
There appears to be a growing desire by authorities to remove peoples knowledge about what they can find out about the contamination history of their local area. I have previously highlighted how The Environment Agency have removed key information about hazardous waste licences from their website, offering a fraudulent review of what took place there, perhaps only serving the brownfield development industry who of course are so eager to build houses on any available piece of land, they care little about what lies beneath.
Add to this Sandwell council’s planning website. It was once possible to look at all of the so called “Hazardous Substance ” consents, granted by the council to the firm to store and use extremely dangerous substances, including chlorine and white phosphorus at their factory. I asked an initial freedom of information question to the council some time ago, yet their reply at the time was totally unhelpful and had to be challenged. There is no doubt they were trying to hide what was stored on that site from public gaze. The details of the consents however were finally revealed on whatdotheyknow.com.
Not only was this site a previous Ministry of Supply factory but in addition to the banned warfare WMD, one of the main chemicals manufactured and used on site -Phosphorus trichloride is the precursor to manufacturing VX nerve gas. It is also possible to use Trimethyl phosphite, also manufactured at Trinity Street.
It now appears that all of the background details for these Haz substance consents, including the committee reports and also the health and safety information submitted about the substances has also been removed from the planning website by persons or persons unknown within Sandwell council- because this is what you now get!
So who? and for what reason have they rubbed these out?
Luckily, I saved quite a few of the important documents, and so I have now made these available again on this website where the Sandwell council have acted to deny people this information about the Oldbury polluter.
My attempt to release the report into their toxic assault on the area in 2009 is currently with the Information commissioners office, but whatever the outcome I will be releasing far more detailed information about the production of phosphine at this site into the public domain than in the HSE’s redacted version.
Could it be that the authorities are more interested in trying to sell off land in derelict condition at surrounding sites for more housing, and deny future residents in this “consultation zone” any insight into what is on their doorstep? But there again despotic regimes do like using human shields to cover the tracks of chemical weapon producing establishments, (whilst also being total hypocrites in blaming others “by proxy” about chemical weapon manufacture and subsequent use.)
Derelict land at Mill Lane would make “first class” housing , with a factory with multiple hazardous waste substance consents within spitting distance.
An interesting ministerial statement made by William Hague, then Foreign Secretary in 2014 reads as follows.
Following Syria’s accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) last year, and as part of the process to eliminate its chemical weapons (CW) programme, Syria provided a confidential declaration to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which lists a number of states from which it obtained supplies of goods used in its CW programme.
The information in Syria’s declaration is classified under the terms of the CWC. However, I wish to inform the House that a review of our own files suggests that there were a number of exports of chemicals to Syria by UK companies between 1983 and 1986 which were likely to have been diverted for use in the Syrian programme.
These exports were:
- – several hundred tonnes of the chemical dimethyl phosphite (DMP) in 1983 and a further export of several hundred tonnes in 1985;
- – several hundred tonnes of trimethyl phosphite (TMP) in 1986;
- – a smaller quantity of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in 1986 through a third country.
All these chemicals have legitimate uses, for example in the manufacture of plastics and pharmaceuticals. However, they can also be used in the production of sarin. DMP and TMP can also be used for the production of the nerve agent VX. That is why the export of such goods is strictly prohibited under the UK export regime introduced since the 1980s and progressively strengthened.
From the information we hold, we judge it likely that these chemical exports by UK companies were subsequently used by Syria in their programmes to produce nerve agents, including sarin.”
Well I never!
So from within Governance there appears to be a tendency to cover up what has gone before, and from within the community an attempt to rewrite the history and romanticise it as though all the bad things were never there at all. Many people made money out of Oldbury and then buggered off- Albright and Wilson being one of the many and leaving behind only a toxic legacy. How proud they all must be in Langley of the creation of a made banned rat poison and chemical weapon. One can also largely determine that not as much is obviously being made now in Oldbury. 😆
These type of arty-farty affairs do not do justice to the victims of industrial pollution. An old works photograph and an anecdote does not show what happened on the hospital ward to those in later life exposed to what was “made in Oldbury”. I used to feel some sorrow for those involved in this, but on reflection they were just as much a part in the toxic deception as the works managers -and so poetic justice. They do not show industrial pollution contaminating waterways and fish gasping for breath. They do not show abysmal air quality destroying peoples health, or certainly not toxic waste in a satellite waste dump poisoning birds.
A soppy poem or a wishy washy watercolour does not capture this suffering, which was also “Made in Oldbury”. But do the organisers of this project or its financial backers even care about detailing any of this “heritage”, or are they as before just propagandists of the chemical industry, so in love with the idea of changing nature that they are too blind to see what else their efforts did to ruin it beyond comprehension? That’s some legacy when after many decades of making in Oldbury, their dumping still scars the future landscapes of tomorrow.
Breaking history