Millpool West Bromwich#3 MARred by historic pollution and fake “clean up” – Part 1

 

THE SOURCE AND PATHWAY

At the close of play for the vile polluting and failing West Bromwich Company, W H Keys Ltd, BDO Stoy Hayward were put in charge of disposing of the factory land and contents within, it should be noted, the whole site contaminated by previous industrial use.

Not surprisingly, there was no appetite by any company to take over the site, and so housing was once again the toxic nugget on offer. This has been a frequent occurrence within the West Midlands area, and one which I would suggest has been deliberately manipulated by the political class for their own personal gain.

Planning records, which I will get to in a moment reveal what happened next, with the involvement of yet another outfit called Bache Treharne, a surveying company. You can see how all of these legal entity vultures start to carve up the pie and how they are all involved in the disgraceful economic dodgy deals in turning crap old factories into houses.

No sooner had the EA and HSE given up on this site, having totally failed to ever regulate it properly, it is revealed that it was bought by a housing developer for £495,000.

So step forward “Mar City Developments Limited”. This company was run by a husband and wife Irish national outfit by the names of Patrick and Margaret Ryan- the latter having the middle name Anne, and thus we can see her initials are at the heart of this entity. 

Prior to taking on this shit site, the following statements are made in the Mar City annual accounts for 2014. We see here the cosy and I would say unseemly deal with a Government department using tax payers money to fund the construction industry- that fraud outfit known as “The Homes and Communities Agency.”

They boast of “an in house remediation team”, and we will get to that crap shit show in due course.

 

It was not long before an outline planning application appeared, in fact in just a few months which makes me believe that it had been eyed  for some time by all of these wretched parties.

DC/06/45887 | Outline application for residential use (C3 Class). | Former W H Keys Ltd Church Lane West Bromwich West Midlands B71 1BN

The statements above and more are made in the document below, submitted as part of the application

DC_06_45887-SUPPORTING_STATEMENT-686288

Admitted in this document are the observations

“The majority of the site was used for the open storage of chemicals, oils and building materials which has led to the site suffering massive levels of underground contamination”

It is revealed that 34 breaches of regulations were on file from the HSE, and these are shown below. Basically, this confirms what we know already in that this was a negligent company run by people from the managing director down who were not technically competent to do so.

The remediation costs were estimated at between £2,600,000 and £3,400,000! The letter below to a Rob Johnson of Mar City is from their “environmental consultants” WSP Environmental Limited. Of most important note are the mentions of the heavily contaminated soils with bitumen and the groundwater remediation control costs. 

N.B What is not mentioned here and is of high importance, is that “remediation” to this environmental consultant does not appear to include the demolition of contaminated buildings, contaminated machinery, and contaminated barrels that were evidentially listed at being on the site prior to the Mar City purchase. I will explore this crucial issue in this post. 

The costs for Mar City therefore were considerable considering they had bought this “crap site for residential” for under £500 grand! They therefore knew at this stage how much it would cost them, and what actions were needed to avoid extra costs, including the demolition of contaminated buildings, plant and barrels of waste. 😉 

The outline application was submitted on 6/3/2006, so before the letter of WSP to Mar City dated 3/4/2006.

DC_06_45887-OUTLINE__MAJOR_-667254

What is clear is that Mar Shitty Developments as they will hitherto be known were quick to claim that this heavily contaminated site was not fit for industrial use. Perhaps this is because they would not be able to tap the Homes and Communities Agency for as much public money Cheddar? John Dadd, the planning officer at the council even made the point that they had failed to demonstrate this in a letter to them dated 23/6/2006, see below.

DC_06_45887-AMENDMENT_REQUEST-684267

A similar claim was made by “skintworth'” agents in connection with The Coneygree site at Tipton, though this was later debunked by another appraisal claiming that business was the right choice when obviously Andy Street’s WMCA became a new tax payer money tree.

Initial comments from The Environment Agency, letter dated 7/4/2006 recommended the standard condition regards pollution. They also state that three landfill sites lie within a short 250 metre distance of the Keys site, including an infilled canal basin underneath part of it which I outlined in the first post. Sandwell council had connections to all of these as site operators or licence holders which is interesting in how they are themselves linked to pollution activities in the area. These licences as far as I can tell were SL99 (black lake) and SL586 . I made an FOI request some time back to SMBC regards the Black Lake site, see link above for their response which appears to show it was a foundry sand tipping graveyard job with little real direction.  The EA make no comments on the Hobnail Brook or Millpool and previous encountered proven pollutant linkages.

DC_06_45887-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_COMMENTS-686042

As far as I am aware, the “remediation” of this site, or flush out of contaminated materials and soils started BEFORE any planning application had ever been granted. Pollution was noted to be happening at Millpool via the Hobnail brook in the summer of 2006. There had been no issues with birds at the lake in terms of visible pollution for many years prior to this, thus indicating a sudden change. What took place after Keys left and Mar Shitty took over is the highly dodgy illegality of the pollution to controlled waters, all under the nose of the useless Environment Agency. 

How is it possible that an application is allowed in “outline” before any real plans for protection of the environment are put forward? No one was watching what went on at this site from a regulatory perspective AFTER WH Keys went bust. No one was watching how these materials were being stored or moved around on site, of which a claimed inventory is listed, how they were being disposed of, or how some of them may have found their way off site or down the drain.  

The theory from WSP was submitted as part of the application in a 25 page document titled and is dated February 2006- i.e BEFORE the application was submitted.

DC_06_45887-DRAFT_REMEDIATION_PHILOSOPHY_REPORT-203034

Two other studies are referred to but not submitted as part of the application- a quantitative risk assessment and a Geo-environmental assessment. At this point, the only vague brief is that the site would be used for residential use, without any plan for gardens- how convenient in terms of not having to justify contaminated soils.

I am not sure why they claim the site was “most recently used by W H Keys.” It had only ever been used by this shit company who had contaminated it without any care for over 100 years on the 3.4 hectare site.

At page 7 we get mention of the Hobnail Brook.

The usual trial pits were undertaken, not representative of anything across the land based upon the scattered conditions of chemicals and drums on this site and how they had leaked over 100 years. It is also apparent that not many were located on the Eastern part of the site which slopes in a downward gradient towards The Hobnail Brook.

Crucially it confirms that groundwater was found to be flowing in a North to North Easterly direction- i.e towards the Hobnail Brook and ultimately Millpool.

 

WSP make the crucial statement regards how the current site threatens the Hobnail Brook and beyond. What is puzzling here is why the EA were not able to make this assessment. It is also of concern that WSP do not appear to know about the previous incidents which prove this pollutant linkage, or profess any knowledge of the so called penstock valve that allegedly had been shut off just a few years previously to stop pollution. Had it opened again, did they damage it in trial pits or building demolition? How would they even know? 

A number of remediation options are suggested, but these are largely theoretical without any specific detailed discussion. These were bioremediation, thermal desorption, landfilling and incineration. WSP were not responsible for any remediation on the site, merely providing information options for Mar City who had control of the site and its contents.

What is clear is that building control at Sandwell council had given Mar Shitty permission to demolish the contaminated buildings that were still on a classified industrial use site. The idea that Mar Shitty could therefore begin moves to change the use by doing this, and please refer to John Dadd’s letter above in connection with this demonstrates how the planning system is corrupt in this regard.

This appears to suggest that before WSP submitted any relevant theoretical studies of the site in any depth, Sandwell Council twats in building control had allowed their clients to get rid of the evidence, and in just 11 days of having received the application? WTF?

I put in an enquiry to Sandwell Planning asking for further information about this consent for demolition and this is what i was given.

Er, there was NO residential scheme application in February 2006, and the application for this in outline was then made to change the use! So the buildings went BEFORE any approval for change of use. As for the condition 6, (see below), this was in reference to the application AFTER they had already demolished and spread around the contaminated contents of the buildings, machinery and barrels. 

Without much of a plan for how remediation was going to be carried out after a significant disturbance of the site contents had already been moved around on site, or how this affected groundwater contamination, the planning committee report is shown below. There isn’t much to say about this, but the lack of comments by the environment agency about proven specific past industrial pollution incidents from the site and source-pathway-receptor pollutant linkage is noted.

DC_06_45887-COMMITTEE_REPORT___SUPPORTING_PLANS-213094

This application was passed with conditions and the decision  notice issued on 16/8/2006

DC_06_45887-GRANT_OUTLINE_PERMISSION_WITH_CONDITIONS-230598

The only points of note from my perspective are conditions 6-8 concerning contamination of land and off site pollution prevention.

It is clear that after this, but not before off site contamination of the Hobnail Brook and Millpool were being seen, and see further discussion of this in the final part of this story coming next, WSP submitted further documents in order to discharge the conditions.

These are not on the Sandwell Council planning website, but I viewed the whole file for this application and subsequent one some years ago, and there was no mention whatsoever of the penstock valve referred to in the case of proven historic pollution from this site and the proven pathway that polluted millpool.

A further revelation is given in documents by yet another on site party known as “Deep Green UK Limited”– a company who were to carry out the thermal desorption on site, yet separated their activities from those that had obviously been undertaken by Mar Shitty prior and during their proposed tenure on site. This again appears to be a mirror of the blame game buck passing between W H Keys and PMC marketing when the tanks were collapsing on the site, but the former claimed that the latter were responsible.

The EA wrote to Sandwell Council concerning a “deployment form” in relation to the DGUK operation, yet offer no comments on the incriminating statements made by this company in response to concerns that they had about their activities.

DC_06_45887-PART_1-DEPLOYMENT_FORM-686040

This was an “outline permission” and at this point Mar City had NOT given information concerning how they had demolished structures or prevented pollution, and yet, their sub contractor claims here that all of this work had already been undertaken! 

We had at this time noted disgusting contamination into the millpool affecting birds and from this likely source!

Furthermore, they also distance themselves from the on site remediation, and we get the scum who were in charge of this unapproved operation below.

 

This company argue with the EA observations using semantics and their own interpretations.

THEY FURTHER DROP MAR SHITTY IN IT WITH THIS STATEMENT.

“Preparation work has been underway at the site for some months now. This has involved clearing the site of waste, demolition of buildings and general site preparation prior to remediation operations commencing. This work has been undertaken by the site owner“

What kind of crap is this? Why was permission granted for the demolition of known contaminated buildings? Who gave this permission, apparently prior to the outline application? Where were the EA comments in relation to this? Why was no one monitoring what Mar Shitty were doing on site with dangerous chemicals that they had no knowledge of?

What is clear is that the EA did not even comment on the reports submitted by WSP until AFTER THEY HAD DONE THE FUCKING WORK! 

What use is this letter which heavily criticises the WSP reports and says that they contradict each other and do not protect off site receptors?

DC_06_45887-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_COMMENTS-684229

I will look at this letter and its comments further on, except to say that this is further evidence of the incompetence of this quango and their professional failure to protect the environment from shiesters like W H Keys and Mar Shitty Developments Limited. Why did Kitchen not write to Sandwell council BEFORE the application had ended with these observations?

Going back to the DGUK statement they confirm on page 8 of the contaminated material that “excavation, screening and stockpiling of material is undertaken by Mar City Developments.” 

There is a great deal of theoretical statements made by DGUK, but are concentrated on their process alone and not the whole “remediation” operation, which is just not good enough. Mar Shitty should have undertaken all of this work and this just feels as though these two parties are distant from the joined up operation which underlines why pollution was getting off site.

There are plans of the site, without buildings now present, operating summary of the DGUK plant and procedural diagrams.

For some reason there are also academic certificates of some bloke called “Leon Pilling” which I note are only dated from January of 2006, and December of the preceding year! I have no idea of if he was leading the operation but does this make this college boy an “expert”, and what actual practical expertise of this system had he or DGUK ever used in reality on any construction site or one as contaminated as W H Keys? Deep “green” indeed! In deep shit would be a better description of this site. 

The deployment form states that 45,000 tonnes of material would need to be treated, an increase of 15,000 on the WSP estimates given and evidenced earlier in this post- so were their costs also inaccurate as well as other things they claimed about this site from their desktops?

 

Further information appears at the end of the 45 page PDF which appears to suggest a precis of the shit WSP assessments on this site. The appendix A referred to in part one can be seen below.

DC_06_45887-PART_2-DEPLOYMENT_FORM-684242

From this, of note are these observations.

 

An “unnamed lake” is of course, the named and known Millpool! 

Their claims about groundwater contamination are utter bollocks and untruthful lies.

This is later taken apart by the EA, but not before they were utterly clueless that pollution via this pathway had taken place for years. 

We get this little gem concerning the incompetence of Sandwell Council officers.

The contaminated land officer, Margaret Gardiner at this point, as well as her boss Richard Norton both were ex rejects of the useless Walsall Council Hazardous waste unit, and were frequent apologists I might add in the protection of Rattlechain and the poisoning of wildfowl activities by the scum that discharged waste there. I am not surprised at the bullshit provable crap written here if true if it was stated that there were “no contaminated land issues”. 😕 

Remember these comments from the NRA which I revealed in the previous post- soak it up Gardiner and Norton….. 🙄

 

“ALL STORM WATER , SPILLS ETC FLOW TO GROUND AND HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A CENTURY. THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF CONTAMINATED LAND, WITH MANY OLD DRUMS STORED ON BARE EARTH”

As for building control, this brainless dickhead had given permission for demolition of contaminated buildings, but according to this had zero evidence to make an informed decision about the contamination of those buildings and the site!

The contradiction of the above statements should be read in context with those unbelievably spelt out on the next fucking page!

The greensters then give us a lesson about pollutant linkages, perhaps they should give this to SMBC environmental health officers and the useless EA ones as well.

This refers to the thermal desorption aspect by DGUK, but not the overall project already begun where contamination had already breached the site and gone off site.

By some strange force, the environment agency suddenly decided to comment on this contamination fest fiasco on 6th October 2006, as mentioned earlier in this post. 

What is shocking is that not only had they failed to adequately comment in time for the application being determined but that they heavily criticise the bullshit  WSP reports!

DC_06_45887-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_COMMENTS-684229

The first thing to note other than the correspondent is referring to the outline application planning number, is that the only report written prior to the demolition approval from building control, which should really have been a separate planning application in itself was the Geo-environmental assessment in January 2006. The other two were written after this had taken place.

The comments are therefore fairly useless at this stage given that activities affecting controlled waters have already happened on the site!

Groundwater data was not complete and had not been followed up with further results that the EA had seen. This confirms that this regulator was unable to make any infirmed statements about the harmful effects that were now occurring AND AFFECTING CONTROLLED WATERS UNDER THEIR NOSES! How can the results of a contractor even be trusted? Why were the EA not taking tests themselves due to the cowboy operation that had unfolded on this site over many years? 

Kitchen notes that WSP cite harmful contaminants fund in the groundwater, and yet then make the contradictory statement that there is limited effect on the Hobnail Brook and soils leaching into it.

“The results of groundwater sampling indicate that significant (i.e in excess of relevant standards ) contamination has reached the groundwater underlying the site”

I wonder why the useless previously named prats in environmental health at Sandwell council were not able to conclude this?

The EA officer asks a relevant point about existing groundwater contamination, but appears blind to the fact that building demolition has occurred and that tanks known or suspected of containing residue chemicals may have added to the mixtures reaching groundwater.

The methodology of the technical leachate analysis for drawing conclusions is also criticised.

Further contradictions and the lies of WSP are further explored which appears to suggest the technical competence of this consultancy is seriously flawed.

Concerning the January document

“Furthermore, the groundwater results presented in that document indicate that there is significant (i.e in excess of relevant standards ) contamination in the groundwater at the site suggesting either direct spillage has ben made or the contamination in the soils is subject to significant leaching into groundwater.” 

The EA state that targets should be set to ensure that acceptable discharges are reached, but I am afraid that that ship had already sailed due to the late comments of this response. Unacceptable levels, and unquantified by regulation had already reached the Hobnail Brook and beyond.

The conclusions although valid are I am afraid too late. 

The following year the major application appeared.

DC/07/47631 | Proposed construction of 150 residential properties (reserved matters). | Site Of W H Keys Ltd Church Lane West Bromwich West Midlands B71 1BN

An application was made for this below.

DC_07_47631-RESERVED_MATTERS__MAJOR__APPLICATION_FOR_PLANNING_PERMISSION-755991

There is little in the way of interest in the files available on the SMBC planning website for this, except in the application which notes this.

Er, the Environment Agency commented that this was shit, but your clients have already railroaded through a “remediation” scheme that was just about getting rid of everything off site by any means possible- up in the air, through the soil, into groundwater, and down the Hobnail brook.

In the final part of this story, I will look at the impact that this planning disgrace had on wild birds at the millpool and what happened next with those involved in creating that mess.