What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!

The familiar battle cry of the ARP from Dad’s Army. The formation of the civil defence of Britain during WW2 including the fire guard, were responsible for a designated area/building and required to monitor the fall of incendiary bombs , particularly those containing white phosphorus and pass on news of any fires that had broken out to the regular fire service.

As we have seen from the stupidity of the home guard and their misuse of AW bombs and later off loading them, it does appear that there was a real risk of self inflicted injury as an aside to anything the Germans dropped from above.

One example below from the 7th August 1942 Norwood Press and Dulwich Advertiser shows how one hapless lecture resulted in burns injury to an instructor after throwing burning phosphorus into a fire! With fools like this it is a wonder as to how Britain kept going and managed to fan the flames from self inflicted defeat.

One of the key revelations in the Sandwell Local Plan which was only revealed by the authority at the 11th hour is that SMBC had entered a formal protocol, a “memorandum of understanding” with Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited 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 Black Country Development Corporation. 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 this time last year.

This desperate attempt to make it look like something had evolved 14 years after the previous examination in 2011, (when nothing has), is underpinned by the fact that the council state they had not even signed it- a farcical home goal that hopefully the inspector at the examination will have seen through like everyone else.

The refusal came after the examination, and I predicted they would refuse it as they had the previous request. An internal review has now delivered the same, so I have complained to the ICO about this insidious backroom dealings of planning policy and who and in what role these dealings are conducted.

It is concerning that there is job swap between individuals working at Sandwell council in this department and private developers, and vice versa, as if they are being planted to gain knowledge by the latter industry. This sham of job swap between public and private sector should be outlawed in my opinion, and we have seen it before with those involved in regulation at the Environment Agency and other public sector bodies.

It is not the first time I have challenged public sector bodies and won with the ICO, such as the landmark request where the CHaIRS group minutes revealed discussion about rattlechain lagoon, and how several bodies had collaborated to cover up the genuine concerns about birds being poisoned by an industry these useless fucking bastards had failed to bring into line. It only showed their incompetence for what it was and “expert” I am afraid is a phrase which does not equate with public sector quangos.

Another challenged FOI to The Food and Environment Research Agency, (FERA), showed how one VLA, (now APHA), individual actually fucking named me in trying to stop me finding out phosphorus levels in a poisoned bird! So much for their neutrality and protection of corrupt industrial polluters. Economic interest is what these parasites are about, as are their political backers.

No, the civil service don’t want the public to find out the truth about private company poisoners do they?

I am not the only one concerned about Sandwell Council and their FOI responses and attempting to hide behind exemptions like the one used in this case. Community activist Darryl Magher has written a piece about financial matters which is of interest. Environmental campaigner The Reverend Paul Cawthorne has also submitted FOIS to SMBC about rattlechain and got the run around revelation.

We shall see what develops if you’ll excuse the pun and hopefully the ICO will agree with me that the public interest test of this outweighs the crap that the council are using about future intent, THEY HAVE HAD 14 YEARS TO DO SOMETHING, FROZEN IN STONE LIKE A STATUE- AT SOME POINT THERE HAS TO BE AN END. 

Scenes in and around rattlechain lagoon during the recent freeze

I usually produce an annual calendar highlighting the manmade damage that the local chemical industry inflicted (and still does) on the Oldbury/Tipton area, but this year I’ve decided to champion something that they will never destroy- NATURE. 

For all the poisonous crap that Albright and Wilson and Rhodia dumped into the lagoon, for all the shite of industry that the Hurst Family and others dumped around and on top of that to make profit on the adjoining land, for all the “crap sites for residential” that Barratt Homes built, THEY FAILED. THEY FAILED because their plans failed to stop nature, its unpredictable resilience, tenacity and agents guided to protect it against their unscrupulous plans.

Despite the toxic crap, plants have grown back, wildlife has returned in the most unlikely places and the flap of a tiny butterflies wings have heralded the turn of the tide.

The small blue butterfly, and established colony off Temple Way

So the area despoiled by the chemical industry and polluted by conmen “regenerators” has had other ideas, much more simple but infinitely more powerful than any pathetic politician fronting a quango talking about “growth”. NATURE will always fight back, it will silence liars who claim to be “environmental consultants” but are just developer cocksuckers, it will foil policy planners who are the same, and it will outlast any toxic nuggets that man dumped in folly, to be a place where things can live.

Below are some examples of flora and fauna of the area in question, some of them now on the red list making a complete mockery of the nonsense about this area being of low conservation value as those who only are interested in house building avarice or their agents try to portray.

Sheepwashrattlechaintempleway calendar 2026

It’s not just the chemicals that these scumbags made that was toxic in the community- some of their staff were outright wrong-uns and convicted criminals.

We have seen lags like The seaman saboteur  James Pinel and metal thief Ernest Sulley   disgracing Trinity Street Towers, and of course AW had a long line of environmental convictions as a company.

But in an apparent homage to the withering of Mrs Gunns’s bush from The Oldbury smell fame, one chemical engineer in question in 1986 nicked some unnamed acid- most likely phosphoric, from the Trinity Street stores.

The 21st January 1987 Sandwell Evening Mail reveals that Mr Telebak had ‘alf inched some acid from his employers and pursued a neighbourly feud against a man proud of his raspberry plants, no doubt turning them yellow after a tipple.

He was fined £50 and discharged if you’ll excuse the pun also being “reprimanded” by his employers allegedly. AW liked to pride themselves as being “good neighbours” with its pathetic sycophantic  “residents committee” consisting of those well connected to the company or even employed by them FFS! Obviously some employees at least like this one were representative of their real demeanour in the community.

As we take a break for a while with matters relating to current events in the area, it is worth a reminder of the different types of waste that Albright and Wilson, as well as other polluting chemical industrial outlets in the Oldbury vicinity pumped out via their manufacturing folly. Much of this was dutifully removed by “people of the road” and often “people of the boat” in Rattlechain lagoon waste tipping terms.

Chemical waste was everywhere, but “scrap machinery” and pipework was another waste material that was lanced from Trinity Street when it had outlived its purpose. That contaminated material also had significant consequences in how it was dealt with, or not as this case from the 15th November 1962 Birmingham Daily Post reveals.

AW had flogged off scrap to local tatters, but is was contaminated with their deadly chemical phosphorus waste. Mr Mole had been disposing of said steel pipework when it exploded in his face causing burns and injuries.

AW contested the claim against them and were not found liable by the judge, and yet the question remains as to how and why they should get away with disposing of material such as this with such gay abandon and the lack of regulations in them being able to do this without censure. Mr Mole received his cut, but AW found dumps like Rattlechain and the Gower Tip easier avenues to dump “scrap material” instead. Lying beneath the water and soil are large amounts of barrels, pipework and scrap machinery all contaminated with the same material that caused the burns here.

Rattlechain ESID report (Conceptual model Environmental setting and installation design report) URS

At page 3 paragraph 1 1.2 Introduction “Installation Details.”

“Historically a variety of waste types were deposited, including chemical drums containing phosphatic muds. It is thought that some drums containing wastes with up to 1% phosphorus, may have been dumped annually until 1995. The historical disposal of solid material such as chemical waste and scrap machinery has also been reported. URS 2002.”

This is a guest blog post by local campaigner Darryl, active in the community in relation to environmental concerns and issues surrounding “reclamation” of contaminated land, in particular the so called “Friar Park Urban Village”, much lorded by the WMCA mayors and politicians of all major parties whose support of this is highly questionable. I have said my piece about this site which can be read HERE. 

It emerged in The Sandwell local Plan, that this site as well as land off and including Rattlechain lagoon had been given the status of “strategic sites” by Sandwell Council, and an attempt no doubt to extort tax payers money out of cleaning up private land the polluter did not pay to do- in this case the disgusting polluter Severn Trent Water. The Matter 9 site allocations council statement about Friar Park can be read between pages  9-13 of the document below.

Sandwell_Council_Matter_9_statement

This is not the first time I have thrown the doors open to guest blogs about damaging sites in the community and “remediation” gone wrong stories. If you would like to tell your story of similar issues and it concerns contaminated land, landfill sites and the effect on communities, YOUR COMMUNITY, then please get in touch via our facebook page. If you disagree with his opinion, why, and what evidence can you offer? 

OPINION BY DARRYL MAGHER

How FPUV, Rattlechain, the A4031/M6 corridor and a blinkered MP are steering Sandwell into a perfect storm.

Well, we seem to have been here before and are going around in circles. 🙄 It is now becoming as farcical as an episode of Allo Allo.

Just a quick recap. The Black Country Core Strategy set out to define housing/employment /green space provision for the region. This then became The Black Country Plan. That was then pulled when Dudley council through a wobbly. Local authorities then produced their own plan, including the Sandwell Local Plan, of which the examination has just finished and the inspector appointed by The Secretary of State is now mulling over.

Despite this, Richard Parker has now via the combined authority appeared to present another new chapter, and it is difficult to see at present if this supercedes the local plans or how it fits into that strategy, or if this is just the original Black Country Core Strategy to include bankrupt Birmingham and Coventry?

So all hail the “Spatial development strategy” (SDS).

This latest con job, and we will come to it, is just another example of what I call “The theft model”

Here we have three wheels, all dependent on one another and cyclical in that they last around 25-30 years before the exercise is reused and a new generation is gaslit again by the same political propaganda that The Combined Authority is using here. Before this we saw the Black Country Development Corporation do the same thing, and before that the creation of the municipal boroughs in the 1970’s.

Generation is used to prop up business- the interests of the political class where they invest all of their money. The worst type of politician, which is most of them, are from the business sector. They gamble high stakes with your money.

Then the part they are most silent on, the degeneration which is mostly engineered by them to set up Act Three. This could be a stock market crash or other panic where somehow it all goes wrong and areas become “brownfield land”.

The third part is the payoff of the sting, the “regeneration“. We never have explained to us how it all went wrong, or how there came to be “no money left”, but the usual trick between Labour and Conservatives is blame the other. It is this two party state fraud that has seen the creation of the WMCA and the position of mayors- a body and position voted for by no one. There is no difference between Andy Street and Richard Parker. 

Vast amounts of public money are falsely claimed to be being returned to portioned areas like “The West Midlands”, and yet this body itself is now taking away money from your council tax for doing fuck all. They even plan to go on strike– well goo on then, and make it permanent because you do nothing and are an example of useless civil servant parasites who are still probably hiding from someone coughing by shirking from home whilst the rest of us in the private sector can justify our jobs.

You can view the new SDS survey below, and this is where all “Rattlechainers” need to act to ensure this latest consultation rejects housing in this area. You have until Friday, 12 December to take part. 

Have Your Say Today – West Midlands: Spatial Development Strategy – Commonplace

A “community questionnaire” link is here. 

A more important map placing exercise for Sandwell can be viewed HERE. This gives an opportunity to place green dots on a map of Sandwell. Please do if you want to save green space place the dots on Rattlechain lagoon, the land off Macdonald Close and Sheepwash Local Nature Reserve.

You can see that some people have already, and you can also read the comments, but let’s turn this area green to replace every tree that was ripped out! Why is the place important to you as it is? This is an opportunity to engage so please do not waste it when it takes less than a minute! 

I am afraid that the jury is out on this latest tasking event, and I do not buy the shpeel below either.

To me this is a political powerplay by the mayor in an attempt to usurp local plans and force the Conservative Walsall, Dudley and Solihull boroughs to give up more so called “green belt” land. This is not such a bad thing in that regard, but the Labour Government’s ludicrous housing targets and direct assault on nature via their Planning and Infrastructure Bill is a wrecking ball for any green space left in Sandwell. WE MUST ENGAGE ON THIS AND EVERY OTHER PHONEY CONSULTATION THEY REGURGITATE  IN FRONT OF US, BECAUSE VOTER APATHY AND LOW PARTICIPATION WILL NOT SAVE ANYTHING AND THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE BANKING ON. 

This third and final week of the Sandwell Local Plan examination was about specific policy areas and their soundness and was conducted online instead of in the council chamber. I had never used Microsoft Teams before so had a practice before the day in question to get used to the application.

Unfortunately, I cannot find that these meetings were recorded as with the previous council chamber webcasts, as there is no record of them in that library.

The specific areas I had commented on were policies SNE1 and SNE2 relating to environmental and habitat issues and policy SCO3 on contaminated land. These areas are obviously key to Rattlechain Lagoon and the ludicrous scheme to use this “void” for filling in waste from a polluter that has never paid on adjacent land.

As with the other days, the inspector had specific matters and issues and invited comments for hearing statements. These areas had already been looked at in some depth in week two, but this overarching policy overlapped this specific site.

Matter 4 concerned natural and historic environment policies. The hearing statement I made for this can be viewed below.

Sandwell Plan matter 4

At the hearing session , the council finally admitted “human error” in relation to failing to recognise Sheepwash as a local nature reserve in 2015, even though they were in full knowledge that it had been designated many years earlier. I expressed concern at this and arguments were made concerning the status of sites and if existing sites would be protected or face deletion.

I did not believe that The Fens pool Nature Reserve or Cannock extension canal were relevant to the Sandwell local plan. In terms of the former, I am aware through a former warden that the designation of this site was based on the great crested newts there, though the way in which Dudley Council and now the CRT have mismanaged it for many years undermines its status, making it questionable if it should have elevated importance above those within Sandwell’s own borders.

There was discussion again around the nature recovery map and its effectiveness when the council were considering overwriting housing in this area.

The discussion on BNG sites in policy SNE2 revealed that Sheepwash had been ruled out by Sandwell planning policy because there were additional site owners such as Network rail. I have to say I find this absurd. I made it clear at the week two hearing that Sheepwash had significantly been mismanaged for years with more interest put into Sandwell Valley and green flag parks, and this omission was yet more evidence in it being blacklisted for spurious reasons. By far over 95% of the site is SMBC owned.

I looked in greater depth as to the inadequacies if the Lepus consulting study BNG sites in this post.

Matter 11 and policy SCO3 concerns contaminated land. My submission in relation to this matter and issues the inspector had can be viewed below.

sandwell plan matter 11

It is clear that there are concerns about how policy is shaped in relation to the current National Planning Policy Framework and its paragraphs, something I realised as this matter unfolded. The theory of “clean up” and responsibility and whose it is has consistently failed across the country and in Sandwell it has unravelled significantly at sites I mentioned such as The Millpool.

Without the polluter paying, without a clear direction that the council can “satisfactorily” guarantee no harm will come to future users is part of the problem, and I think the inspector got that. The wording of a policy is almost part of the problem in that the idea of turning contaminated land into housing is a very bad idea to start with.

This is why I stated that all former landfill sites be removed from residential site allocations within the plan and their acceptance that future risk outweighs built development upon them. 

How do you solve a problem like “the mere”?

BR7P51 Aerial view of white phosphorus chemical waste disposal in Rattlechain Lagoon, St John’s Lane, Tividale, Sandwell, England, Britain, Uk

It has been my longstanding personal experience of this local authority that wildlife protection and the protection of wildlife habitat have been thrown to the wolves or housing developers over time. Nature corridors like those which border Sheepwash Local Nature Reserve such as The River Tame and The Birmingham Mainline Canal and branches are vital for species to use as means of travel and you cannot just designate a site with a status pretending that all the nature in that one area should live there. This is the absurd idea behind Biodiversity net gain banks that now appears part of Government and local authority mantra like The Sandwell Local Plan.

It wasn’t always this way, and Sandwell council in the early 1980’s appeared committed to ecological preservation recognising the benefits to human and wildlife interaction with Sheepwash and Forge Mill at Sandwell Valley landscaped and blended into the natural landscape. This is how it should have been continued and how it should remain today.

Even Rattlechain lagoon, as toxic as it is and due to its isolation and gravelly pathway attracts rare birds. Common terns ironically used to breed on the pontoons which piped the poison into the lake. More recently, black necked grebe and also waders have been spotted, and I was particularly thrilled to have found a whimbrel early one morning, a very rare passage migrant for this part of the world.

It is sad that despite the 2013 cover up works that Rhodia promoted as “improvements”, we have not seen any attempt by this or successor company to create nesting opportunities for common terns or anything else here. Not a bird box in site despite erecting massive poles with cctv without any planning permission. They never cared about the wildlife on here, only their own damaged reputation.

Sadly, we do not have politicians of any clout now who champion wildlife and ecological concerns. This is left to a few celebrities or local activist groups, whilst the housing developers have the ears of Government, pouring poison into their ears and likely money into their seedy pockets. Nature has never faced a worse bad deal than is now on the cards.

Everywhere at every level, Sandwell council fails to safeguard nature and its integrity. Take one case in point in the area of interest that we are now concerned with in the rattlechain area, and on this matter I did raise this several times in the local plan consultations process. See PDF below which I will explain.

Designation of Nature Conservation Sites

In July 2022, a report to Sandwell’s cabinet saw a number of sites with designation tweaked.

The John’s Lane area we will look at below, but attention should be drawn to the fact that the area in question was already a designated SLINC to Sandwell council, but also that this review extended the area based on a claimed ecological survey, and yet we get no explanation for the change in the area, which appears to me to just appear as though the council are “doing something” with areas so that they can later claim to be ecologically good eggs.

“2.4 The recommendation is required to ensure that the Council’s Local Plan
is based on up-to-date evidence and can continue to be used as the basis for robust and defensible planning decisions.”

So this means that the area that they are supportive of levelling to build 550 houses, including the SLINC would be “defensible”, right, in their local plan, based on “up-to-date evidence” from 2022?

Further on in this report we also get this, just to show the negative reasons as to what value Sandwell council places on such designated areas for wildlife.

“4.5 The surveying of existing SINCs and SLINCs is essential to ensure that
such designations are based on robust and up-to-date evidence.
4.6 The potential for planning decisions to be challenged increases where it
can be shown that Local Plan allocations are based on out-of-date or incomplete information. Ensuring that there is current information relating to the Borough’s inventory of nature conservation sites, including SINCs and SLINCs, reduces this risk.”

Sandwell council also put in a disclaimer by name dropping the local wildlife trust.

“4.8 The reports are based on recommendations made by The Wildlife Trust
for Birmingham and the Black Country. The recommendation has been
endorsed by the Local Sites Partnership (LSP).”

In this SLINC area, we are talking about the perimeter between the rattlechain lagoon and the former “Rattlechain Tip” area- all private land, and yet no assessment appears to have been made concerning the wider area beyond that or if this was even surveyed. We of course know that  Lepus consulting on behalf of SMBC did not do any of this for their proposed habitat BNG banks as the council did not ask them to. 

looks like someone has been doodling penises in Sandwell council

The SLINC area the council extended is incomprehensible in terms of why? In fact it appears to me that someone just did a cock doodle to tick the box they wanted as per the reason above. What the fuck is there, compared to what IS there to the right on the land that was levelled by scumbags earlier in the year?

As it is, we are aware that the former Duport’s Tip area next to Rattlechain lagoon contains a rare butterfly- the small blue, (Cupido minimus), Britain’s smallest butterfly as well as the associated kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria) which its caterpillars eat. It is protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 and a priority species under the UK Post-2010 Biodiversity Framework, also appearing on the GB Red List (2022): Near Threatened. I had a site walkover last year with naturalist Darrell Harrison who had found the butterfly and several unusual plants on the site of local rarity.

Darrell’s report was submitted to the Sandwell Local Plan as part of The Friends of Sheepwash Nature Reserve submission. His sightings of this butterfly start in 2022, the same year that those who surveyed the John’s Lane area for SMBC , or claimed to could not appear to find fuck all. Why is that?

The Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust specifically also mentioned this area and this species in their submission to Sandwell council, see below.

The loss of all that green space could not possibly result in the biodiversity net gain that the council love to talk abut on paper.

In addition to this “up-to date information”, Sandwell council were also given a very comprehensive report by Paul Dunn, a butterfly and moth expert who had been tracking a colony of small blue butterflies in this area SINCE 2016! They also have the work of Mike Poulton, a local botanical expert who also has independently identified this butterfly and associated kidney vetch over this period, his report verified by Professor Ian Trueman Chairman of the Birmingham and Black Country Botanical Society, and co-author of the Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country. I had a site walkover with Mike and Paul after the destruction of trees. It has been documented that this site recorded 27 out of 57 resident butterfly species (Painted Lady & Clouded Yellow makes 59) 45.76% of the British list last year. Representatives from Butterfly Conservation and Professor Trueman have also visited the site, and have all made contributing evidential records on the site which have been submitted to eco record.

This photo, and I did a video as well of the whole area where the butterflies were taken in May 2025 making this the ninth year in a row where  their presence of an established colony has been observed. I am also now aware that there were verified sightings before this.

THIS THEREFORE MEANS THAT THE COUNCIL HAVE OUT OF DATE INFORMATION AND HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE CHOICE WHICH WILL OF COURSE NOW BE CHALLENGED IN ANY PLANNING DESCISION AND WAS ALSO CHALLENGED IN THE LUDICROUS PLAN AT THE EXAMINATION STAGE. THEY HAVE IGNORED THE “UP- TO- DATE EVIDENCE” AND HAVE INSTEAD BACKED THE PLANS OF LIARS AND UNPROFESSIONAL SWINDLERS WHO HAVE DESTROYED NATURE.

They have also now refused my FOI request seeking the bullshit Rattlechain Redevelopments/DSM ecology report, which does not exist, but they claimed it did. This report was obviously so bad, and not compiled with anyone with an ounce of talent or expertise that to publish it would be embarrassing to them as a consultancy- they would never get any future business, and the council would also look bad in that they believed the shite that they had made up.

FOI REQUEST.

There is a long and wordy pile of bollocks in the refusal, but this is the key part.

“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.  It is felt that disclosure of the information at this point, prior to a firm decision to develop or prior to a planning application being submitted is premature. It is considered that sharing information prematurely could lead to speculation and discussion outside the formal planning processes, which would divert time and resources from ensuring a thorough and considered approach.  The disclosure would clearly cause adverse harm to the developer as it will result in the need for further rebuttals, when these matters should be dealt with at the appropriate stage i.e. through the planning application process or through an Examination in Public of the Local Plan.”

Although at first minded to challenge the refusal, I was instead guided to leave it there and present our extensive documented information, juxtaposed with the council refusal to present any information, to the planning inspector, who will hopefully be able to see the wood through the trees with people who claim “misinformation” and “inaccurate statements” and yet are not prepared to put their work in the public domain to be scrutinised.

Further information on this matter has also come to light from Sarah Coombes MP for West Bromwich, whom we also met on site. She met with Alan Lunt, and I must say the tone of this letter is very different to that which the council have put out, and I would like to thank Sarah for taking this matter up with them, and hopefully underscoring how badly this has been handled from a public relations point of view by those at the council, believing and representing a proven liar and not local affected residents.

“Towards the end of 2024, the owner informed the council of his intention to carry out intrusive site investigations across the land. The council was advised that the landowner had commissioned independent ecologists to carry out a Preliminary Environmental Assessment (PEA) across the tip with the intention of confirming the presence or likely presence of rare or protected species.
It was also confirmed that a separate badger survey had also been carried out. Based on the findings of the PEA the landowner confirmed to the council that works would begin to clear vegetation across the site in January 2025.
On 8 January 2025, the owner began preparatory works to reinstate access into and across the site for plant and equipment. It was confirmed to the council that this work was limited to clearing vegetation from the mound, with no intrusive ground investigations at this stage. The council was also advised that an ecologist would be on site to undertake a watching brief throughout this work, to ensure all conditions set out in the PEA were complied with, and to monitor for the presence of unexpected protected species.”

Appendix G SC01730-Sarah-Coombes-response-rattlechain

Just a few observations on this slightly amended council statement.

• It is interesting that the council refer to “the site owner” and “his” singular, and not the entity who appear on the title deeds who are a company- “rattlechain redevelopments limited” . I wonder here if we are really dealing with the same individual from the 1990’s and this has just been another of his elaborate, but not particularly intelligent aliases and hustles like the Jersey registered fake companies he set up?
• Intrusive site investigations had already taken place in 2020, as observed, and yet the council claimed that there is no current plan for intrusive site investigations, so which is right and why did this change?
• The site was entirely cleared and not just “the mound”
• As already stated, these “independent ecologists” were obviously shite and there is no time scale as to when this claimed report took place. I BELIEVE THERE WAS NONE AT ALL CARRIED OUT, AND THE SITE OWNER IS A LIAR. THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT OUT WITH THE PHANTOM “LEAFLETS” WHICH NO ONE HAD. GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT, LET US SEE THIS REPORT AND DON’T REFUSE TO ALLOW THE COUNCIL TO RELEASE IT- EITHER PUT UP OR SHUT THE FUCK UP. 
• The presence on site of an ecologist is another pack of lies, and no “rare species” would be present in December/January, nor would any credible ecologist carry out a survey during these months as an assessment of rare species on the site. Why did they miss Japanese Knotweed in their “watching brief”, DSM contractors spreading and disturbing this across the entire site with machinery? We have video evidence of this.

Small blue butterflies at Rattlechain Tip. 

© Mike Poulton taken June 2022 at Rattlechain Tip

©Mike Poulton Small blue butterfly at Rattlechain Tip taken June 2021

©Mike Poulton small blue butterfly taken at Rattechain Tip June 2021

This comment by SMBC is of note regards status of sites.

NOTE THE DATE AND THAT WE CAN PROVE WHAT WAS ON THE SITE BEFORE DSM DEMOLITION TURNED UP

The status of this site has been poorly classified by Sandwell council and the site owners, It demands greater protection from their destructive plans and dirty chancers.