“SHEEPWASH” FFS!
And so to week 2 of the Sandwell local Plan examination. Week one and my participation in that I looked at HERE.
This week saw “the big one” as I see it, discussion of soundness of the plan regards site allocations, principally sites SH35 and SH36 involving the lagoon and the other land around it in separate ownership.
I made a big point of separating the two sites in submissions with two appendices of the two tip histories which can be read HERE.
There is much to break down in this, but this post is just a “precis” update, and I will do a legacy page post and full rebuttal of matters at a later date. Matter 9 was the inspector’s questions following the hearing statements and a chance to comment on those in light of her further questions.
Examination in session
The submission statement I made in relation to these questions can be read at the link below.
In response to Sandwell Council’s hearing statement, there are some new elements which I will look at here which are most important, and as stated, will do a full break down at a later date. These elements were discussed at the examination which I will reference here.
The key issue is that the council are now proposing the two sites as one package as a “strategic site”. This is a jargon aimed at getting a tax payer bailout for “cleaning up” private land where the polluter- (The Hurst Family et al) have not paid. The fact that “Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited” (the Kelly family) made a shite investment in buying the land from the tax avoidance “Denver Limited” for £1.2 million, (Mintworth in disguise), is not our problem, it is theirs. We had over a decade in the 1990’s of supercilious arrogant demands from one company, under many names, who felt entitled to have everything their own way and believe that everyone should just roll over for their ambitions of “private open space” with multiple drawn out planning applications. Well fuck that, it is not going to happen again as long as I am drawing breath.
It is not Sandwell Council’s problem either, but it is now clear that this authority is just purporting for private land banking investors not from our area in order to meet the housing figures of the bent “Labour Growth Group”= political class fingers in the pies with the development construction industry and malfeasance in public office. It is a pitch for man in glasses Parker and the combined authority which has already shelled out money for the Kelly family and their also former Mintworth abandoned land at Coneygree as well as the Shidas Lane Mintworth debacle that became an ambulance base in another crooked deal.
Sandwell_Council_Matter_9_statement
This is a lengthy document so do not be put off reading the important pages which start at page 14 concerning SH35 and SH36 which the council are now calling a combined site allocation of “SHO12″ – I would call it a “SHIT SHO” in line with former planning officer John Baylay’s description of the former sewage works site and its residential adequacy.
The other main issue is that Sandwell Council included comments from the agents of RRL (The Kelly family) as part of their promotion. At no time have Elias Topping or RRL made any representations at any stage of this process , and of course SMBC referred frustrated residents to the lies of the aforementioned in connection with the fake leaflets which were never delivered before the ecocide that took place in January.
It is stated that SMBC entered a formal protocol, a “memorandum of understanding” with RRL as well as the “charity” known as the CRT- once again an apparent reboot homage to the corrupt cabal goings on of the late 1980’s and the BCDC. This was unsigned it is stated, and I made an FOI request in relation to that matter, which SMBC have once again refused as they did the bogus “environmental survey” that it was claimed had been undertaken before the massacre of trees. More on that further on in this post.
Does this not show how this plan appears to be evolving as a rolling overtime show because it was rushed through without adequate preparation? They have also now claimed it is a “strategic site”, and so tie the whole plan’s soundness into this site being able to be delivered by 2041. In 2011, the same site that never came forward, and it was never proven that it could be, has not gone any further in 14 years. That planning inspector at that examination of site allocations said that this sites omission from the plan as a whole would not demonstrably make the then plan unsound. THIS IS NOW NOT THE CASE NOW BECAUSE THE COUNCIL HAVE NOW MADE IT CRUCIAL TO THEIR PLAN. The inspector in 2025 did confirm that she is examining the original site allocations and not this new one.
The council cannot make the claims of availability regards this site as one whole unit as it requires
- Permission from Rhodia- not given –what is their position in writing, and where is their evidence of this? They have called it “rattlechain” but it is not one site to do this at present. Why did Elias Topping not partake in this matter? Are they that arrogant that they think they can just submit a Hail Mary plan at the last minute and Sandwell council will dutifully submit this prejudicially BEFORE any planning application? At the examination I asked for this and also the comments of The Environment Agency. I am not going to take the word of already proven liars.
- What was this memo of understanding, and why is there only reference to this now- Noted that Rhodia have not been involved in any such understanding. Why was it not signed, and who would sign it?
- NO STRATEGY AGREED, AND YET THEY CLAIM IT VIABLE! Disgraceful that SMBC are trying to involve ET and a private business in this at this stage. I MADE A POINT OF ORDER ON THIS MATTER- THEY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK OR HAVE REPRESENTATIONS AT THE HEARING STAGE. I MADE THIS POINT STRAIGHT AWAY AS THE EXAMINATION SHOWS.
Page 6 paragraphs 30 and 31 make it quite clear that only those who made representations at the Regulation 19 stage have a right to appear, and therefore no one else does. In light of this, The Inspector clarified that she wanted to hear their position for clarity.
- The Council claim they do not endorse the strategy or comments, and yet they have tacked them on to their statement- so they obviously and prejudicially do. The evidence is not “detailed” at all. They ignore p4 chemistry and the lagoon owners who make no comment- as usual as I pointed out, Rhodia are gutless yellow fucking cowards, as were Albright and Wilson .
“In short, their preferred strategy has been presented to the council without detailed evidence of its achievability and without evidence that other options for remediating and delivering the site have been fully explored.”
- The Council then attempt to subvert the exam process by introducing the latecomers. THEY APPEAR TO BE PROMOTING THE AGENTS OF THE LAND OWNERS!
- “Lead party” who says they have any relevant experience or credibility in this field for such a site, in terms of p4 site remediation? What experience do they have? They are only willing if the WMCA cough up public money for which the polluter who is known never paid! “In the near future”- they have had years, and yet we are now supposed to believe that in the last few months they have a “strategy”.
- I once again and hopefully finally for the benefit of doubt prove that neither of these two sites are “brownfield land” as the council keep referring to them as.
I made the distinction that they had in fact passed a planning application for certificate of lawful use to the lagoon operating as a tip in 2004 on the basis that it had been operating as such for a very long time. The RRL land is of course also a former tipping area and both sites were before that within a quarry for Etruria marl extraction.
I also reminded the council that one officer who was indeed present at the examination made a definition of what was excluded from brownfield land which makes a complete nonsense of their claims in this plan regards rattlechain.
Council response to Portway Hill landowner in 2016
- The council above make a very simple version of the history of the two tips, and are wrong concerning “fuel ash”. I have no idea where they have got this from, but the former Mintworth site is of course a foundry sand dump which they well know. Fuel ash is not foundry sand. Foundry sand is a high quality silica sand used in metal casting processes, while fuel ash is a by-product of burning coal or other fuels. Foundry sand is typically reused multiple times in casting, whereas fuel ash is often classified as “hazardous waste” and has different disposal and recycling considerations. Are the prospective dumpers therefore going to tip this hazardous waste into a void within feet of local residents homes, under the gaze of the EA? Or are they just using this fake claim to extract money from the public purse by claiming it is too expensive to remove off site?
- The council has never investigated the RRL land site itself ! It has failed to look at digging it up in 2011 which exposed hazardous packaging waste! It was previously developed as “private open space” ,SMBC gave a string of planning applications to do this which caused “misery” for local residents!
- It is absurd calling this “a garden city”, and an increase on previous plans the council were submitting. During the hearing session Andy Miller in fact admitted that this long used phrase appears to have been “superseded” by the mass house building that the “strategic site” now defines. Why then is The Sandwell Local plan still littered with the phrase that was trotted out by the Black Country Core strategy? It “Benefits” who? Not permanent when building on contaminated land by leaving p4 under the houses- phosphine gas. Rather than removing monitoring it will in fact add decades of future risk which the council cannot possibly know. The site is not capable of being remediated- how can they say this if they have no plan?
- Council ignore all the other paragraphs which we have pointed out in NPPF Dec2023 and mentioned in the soundness test to the inspectors questions.
Other points of rebuttal to the council’s nonsense.
- It is not an acceptable use of land to build homes on a site which the council have not been able to determine under part 2 a! FFS! Planning decisions have assumed but they have failed to operate effectively given the 12 year operation on the land in question that supposed to take 2!
- Failure to know that p4 would poison birds and receptors- The comments of the CHaIRS group.
- NPPF is not fit for purpose in this regard.
- The assessments of the council regards infrastructure defy realistic experience of real people and their opinions. We talked to families with children and pressures of school places, infrastructure etc when collecting signatures on streets in The Temple Way estate rather than the glossy hurriedly prepared “masterplan” of architects who have unlikely ever visited the area themselves let alone live there!
- The council also mention that one area along the John’s Lane track is less than seven metres. They mean seven feet not meters FFS! So they will have to buy land they don’t even own that is also contaminated! Will this cost also be expected to be from the public purse?
RRL comments
We then get several pages promoted by Sandwell council from this private business not even based in the West Midlands county from their ET agents. Most of this is bullshit, which I will rebut in full at a later date, but on some points I do wish to comment here.
They mention yet another consultancy involved could not find relevant evidence which is contained within the Sandwell plan examination library, and for that clarification, here is that submission below.
All of the statements that I made are backed up and may not be convenient for their Irish clients but are for the plan examination.
Sandwell local plan FOSNR evidence and references to submissions
The definition of “strategic site” differs on how many houses and is not sound on this basis.
The council now introduce modifications at the 11th hour for over 500 homes, and yet this is contradicted later on by the site owners agents who state 415. On this basis this point was raised by myself and I think appreciated by the inspector who asked for clarification. This then drew out proposed “strategic site policies” which we have yet to see the detail of.
Ecological Considerations
At the examination, the inspector firstly wanted to hear more on this matter. Dr Paulson from the BBCWT confirmed that the RRL land is now considered a “potential site of importance for nature conservation” , based on the presence of the small blue butterfly which has been known to be present on the site since at least 2016. Local recorders and site surveys meet that threshold as far as they are concerned and that previous considerations and the environmental destruction seen earlier in the year did not appreciate this.
I mentioned my refused FOI request concerning the claimed environmental survey which took place prior to the clearance of trees in January and slighting comments made by Sandwell council once again parroting Elias Topping in that refusal.
“The developer is aware of the long-standing objections relating to the proposed use of land and asserts that objectors have sought to adversely harm their interests through the spreading of misinformation and inaccurate statements, relating to the potential development of the site, with particular emphasis on the ground conditions and ecological implications of the same. “
NO “MISINFORMATION” HAS BEEN SPREAD, I CAN AND HAVE BACKED UP EVERYTHING WITH DIRECT EVIDENCE- SO GO AND FUCK YOURSELVES YOU LIARS!
I highlighted how Sandwell council via MP Sarah Coombes letter had in fact altered the narrative of the claimed survey with semantics.
Appendix G SC01730-Sarah-Coombes-response-rattlechain
On this point, ET firstly stated that the survey was conducted in April 25- after the tree clearance, then backtracked saying it was carried out in December 2024. Of course it was pointed out that you would not expect to find much at all in that month of the year.
I think it was accepted that the claims that this site has little ecological value was misguided by the owners of the RRL land.
Other matters regards habitats and BNG sites were touched upon which was considered in week three- post coming soon.
The biggest nonsense concerns the financial claims of clean up- a figure of £50 million appears out of thin air as though touted like a straw in the wind, only to then claim that the use of the lagoon would cost US far less to dump it all into. I did point out again that Mintworth and the players in that operation should pay for the clean up that they created and left, where they were quite aware of how the BCDC rejected this idea in 1991 from the Cremer and Warner survey.
The C&W report considers options for the site, which are shown below. It is clear that the Hazardous Waste Unit and the National Rivers Authority were totally against any idea of dumping foundry sand on top of this chemical time bomb bath. They state that it would increase ground and surface water contamination.
The levels of sulphide and sulphate at the site amongst other things lead the authors to conclude-
Mr Berry of Portway claimed that remediation had come on since this time, but he would say that wouldn’t he being in this business, but I bet he would not want to live their like any members of The Kelly family paying his wages.
Rhodia rejected the idea when drawn out about it in 2011, (see PDF evidence base again above in this post), and this third instalment I stated was the final in the trilogy of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but just the bad and the ugly.
Contamination and Remediation
The discussion then turned to the most important issue of the case and if this proposed scheme would be achievable by 2041. Obviously I think it is bullshit that it ever could be in terms of the lagoon and its inclusion in this scheme.
I made the point that the lagoon has only been partially “remediated” if you could call it that by burying waste, which I do not. The Eastern and Western sides of the lagoon including the Eastern border of the RRL land where Rhodia used to claim that landfill gas was coming from into their site has never seen anything done at all. I also made the point that the historic AW site went off the current one and included part of the now Autobase site, so historic contamination does not end at the current fence line!
On white phosphorus, I reiterated the dangers of this chemical and its associated breakdown products- most notably phosphine gas. That appendices and relevant links within it can be read below. I also explained my historic knowledge of the site and the issues surrounding the P4 systemically poisoned birds.
Appendix C white phosphorus and legacy
I mentioned the involvement of Marianne Walsh and her comments regards Rattlechain made to the EA previously (see also evidence base PDF above in this post), and us in light of her experience of this chemical in a remediation setting.
I also reminded the inspector of comments the EA had made in 2011 regards the scheme where they had expressed the same concerns – notably in the US superfund site at East Michaud where phosphine gas had been generated after capping.
In terms of ET and newcomers Portway Remediation, I found their comments pretty vague as to how they intend to carry out works on a site they have yet to even examine let alone their clients! Certainly I do hope the inspector considers this as a soundness test of achievability by 2041.
Another matter I raised concerned air quality, a big buzz theme of late to local authorities and their war on cars and creation of fascistic “15 minute cities”.
The video on the council website lasts for some time, but the first two and a half hours are the discussion are about this site.
I have had a great deal of positive feedback from residents and other observers about the points I made, thank you for that, and I don’t think that much more can have been said.
A lethal dose of white phosphorus fits on the end of the nose of the Queen or now King on a 1p piece. Is it acceptable to bury tens of tonnes of this material under peoples homes and forget it is there?