Last week local environmental campaigners including myself organised a public event in Tividale concerning the so called “garden city” proposals (“The Dudley Port Supplementary Planning document” DPSPD) – part of which attempt to promote “allocated” housing sites in the vicinity of toxic contaminated land.
To view this click below.
This area has on its doorstep an area that was also once “a tip” that someone had the vision to reclaim into an “urban park” which later became a local nature reserve. The strangely named “Sheepwash Local Nature Reserve.” There are no sheep here, though the name supposedly derives from when sheep were.
What there is here is an existing haven for wildlife, which although not perfect largely due to Sandwell council’s lack of care and management does at least have potential to be a first class area for nature. This is entirely dependent on its surroundings not being built on and nature corridors along the canal network and surrounding open spaces severed by housing and human intervention. It is this aspect that those intent on making money can never see.
The event was well attended and local residents in the area, some old and some new told us their stories of what had transpired in the early 1980’s and throughout the 1990’s. We were told about
- “Structural damage” to properties caused by activity on the former Duport’s tip site during the “reclamation” works.
- How monitoring had been done concerning boreholes, by parties unknown yet results had never been shared with them
- How some had attended meetings with only representatives of The Black Country Development Corporation- yet never with Mintworth or anyone involved in the so called “steering group” ghost group that took place out of public scrutiny. They were not aware of these meetings and how they show nothing but utter contempt from the point of view of the so called “consultants” of the company talking about “quelling” local public concern.
- How one resident had been told by a Sandwell council officer several years ago that John’s Lane was “private land” and they could not take pictures there. (Of course this is total lies as a public right of way and one seriously questions the reasons why an officer would lie like this, and if they were part of some corrupt conspiracy of silence about The Albright and Wilson facility. (Let’s also not forget how the hazardous waste management notice board disappeared when houses were being marketed on the former sewage works site in 2006).
- As well as some residents who had moved away from the area, it was also clear that others had moved in very recently in the last few years, and so were unaware of the past legacy of this area involving the lagoon, the former Duport’s tip and the foundry sand tipping era of “misery”
- Most were blissfully unaware of the “allocated” status of the housing in the area, and had not heard of “the garden city” consultation until we had raised and promoted its objectional content.
- There was a clear consensus that they were against more housing in the area concerned- mainly due to loss of wildlife habitat/privacy and increased traffic pressure.
We were also provided with some photographic evidence concerning large areas of water on the former Duport’s tip site and surrounding land that had accumulated in the vicinity of the then recently built “Charter Homes” estate- incorporating Law Close. One could date the photographs from the iconic gas cooling towers still visible at Ocker Hill in the distance, which were demolished in 1984, as well as the gas tower at Swan village and Ryder house in Whitgreave Street- also both blown up in the early 2000’s.
The landscape appears barren with rubbish blowing all around. It is also clear from these pictures, (estimated taken in 1982), about the then existing height of the tipped foundry sand. I was already aware from an Environment Agency contact that the original levels were supposedly that of the existing sewage works, but this appears to be the proof of that. The Albright and Wilson panelled fencing forming a border between the two sites is visible, and clearly below the height of the top of the then base. The height of the current mound connected to the now replaced Rhodia metal fence on this side of rattlechain lagoon is now several metres above.
View of the mound today several metres above Rhodia fenceline
A flimsy wooden fence with broken gaps visibly present is all that divided the tip operating under the auspices of what by then would have been waste management licence SL129, from the houses. This remains the case even today in the same area.
We also saw a more recent picture of the French drain being constructed around the site, plastic sheeting taped off with red and white flicker tape. This I am aware from correspondence would date to around the end of the 1990’s.
Politically this is a potential hot potato. It was interesting to see both Green party and UKIP representatives at the event sharing a common goal in tackling an issue of local concern. I would like to thank both of these parties for attending the event, whilst also stressing that this blog writer is a member of neither though has sympathies with both. It is I believe possible to achieve a balanced perspective on a range of issues.
Information and the accessibility of it and the then inaccessibility of information was one of the driving factors of setting up this website. Things were hidden away in drawers and gathering dust in boxes. Stories and anecdotes remained scattered , and the history had largely been written by people sympathetic to a polluting and deceitful industry. Those balances have hopefully now been corrected.
One should also be careful of the veneer of respectability attached to science, and especially the concept of paid science for hire via the so called “environmental consultant” industry, who are really development opportunity facilitators. We were told many things by scientists regarding the safety of the lagoon and about “toothpaste” when we started to ask questions about bird deaths at the site. One should question how scientists at Trinity Street were able to put a lid on their toxic waste for all those years, and also how the scientific knowledge that they and their regulators professed to have failed to protect the innocent wildlife being poisoned by their greedy business interest. A knowledge of A level chemistry helped me understand some of it, and those unpaid by any party connected to the lagoon financially or surrounding area the rest. Having an “ology” does not make you an expert on everything, even if you are conceited enough to think it does. Take the case of Erin Brockovich for example and how she was able to uncover a great chemical deception with water in the US, and continues to fight for environmental justice with her “sticktoitness” philosophy.
It is a community however that holds the key to environmental justice. Unfortunately apathy is something which infects some people living in such areas as this and the fact that people have not literally dropped dead living next to both the lagoon and the former Duport’s tip site should not be taken as a barometer of them being “safe”.
People are of course free to let the grass grow around their feet, ignore all warnings about what is likely to happen only to wake up one day and when they pull back the curtains see a mechanical digger has shovelled a load of foundry sand across an area that once supported wildlife. They probably believe the opinions of a someone that their house prices will go down if they make a public fuss, where as that same person’s luxurious pad in green belt land, unspoilt by tipping weighs in at around £1.15 million.
Gone is the view, the claims made that the area would “not be built on” and the reality starts to bite that they have been sold a pup.
The following day after our event, myself and a co organiser of the petition attended the event being held in Victoria park Tipton- which included a Sandwell council officer stall concerning the Black country Core strategy and the DPSPD. Our attendance was probably unexpected to say the least, but perhaps an increase of two to anyone who will actually be affected by the site allocations in The Temple Way area who did not attend.
It was stated that the Black Country Core strategy and site allocations would be reviewed next year, which to us makes the DPSPD quite useless, especially as the council already announced this week that they had acquired money for The Birmingham Canal revamp in the area anyway.
Of course we will object at every opportunity concerning these allocations and their unsustainability of being sited next to a hazardous waste lagoon emitting toxic gas.
There remains one week left to comment on the DPSPD, and do not be misguided into believing that site allocations are a done deal, because as the officers were forced to concede, the ground conditions are far from being “shovel ready”, and they also stated that Sandwell council would not buy the land because of those constraints making it unviable. Well that’s some confidence there isn’t it! See the SWOT analysis “threats” below which was strangely omitted from the main document itself and only revealed when we FOI’d it. We’ve added a few relevant pointers for potential developers about “ground conditions” in the area. 🙄
TO COMMENT ON THE PROPOSALS IN THIS DOCUMENT YOU CAN EMAIL
ldf_planning@sandwell.gov.uk
Alternatively at the council event they also gave out a postal address at which you can respond to the proposals, strangely not included in the council publicity (or lack of it) concerning the DPSPD.
PLANNING REGENERATION, SANDWELL MBC, SANDWELL COUNCIL HOUSE, FREETH STREET, OLDBURY, WEST MIDLANDS, B69 3DE.
PLEASE DO THIS BEFORE 5.30 PM MONDAY 7TH AUGUST 2017
Remember you can also sign an online petition
which together with a paper one will be handed in shortly at the same time.
THERE IS ALSO THE CURRENT BLACK COUNTRY CORE STRATEGY WHICH CAN BE VIEWED HERE.
It is important that people are able to shape their own areas and not by others who dictate by design what should happen from outside them. The open question remains for these people-
“WOULD YOU YOURSELVES EVER CHOOSE TO LIVE THERE, AND IF NOT WHY NOT?”
Science can be bought, and things can be spun.
Sometimes it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know and the circles in which they operate.