What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

Once again we are into a phoney “consultation” period concerning the  future of planning in this concrete metropolitan borough. Sandwell’s planning department has always been bent, from elected members doing favours for their offspring to buy cheap land, to multiple decisions to build over green space, so long as it is not in any councillor’s back yard. The first thing to note is that there is no difference between Labour and Conservative in this field with their “brownfield first” agenda- using public money to support private business. I cannot for example get my head around this decision. PAY FOR YOUR OWN FUCKING FACTORY BUSINESS EXPANSION- IT IS NOT UP TO SCROUNGE FROM THE PUBLIC PURSE- IS THIS PUBLIC MONEY GROUNDFORCE/CHALLENGE ANNEKA OR SOME PROGRAMME LIKE IT?

Once again Wealdstone the wretched mayor is on hand for a photo opportunity, but this one below is the real deal and essence of the case.

After Dudley Council screwed over the other local authorities, SMBC and the others have now gone it alone, which is worse because of the aforementioned corruption  concerning planning in Sandwell. The unitary development  plans were always crooked in the way in which they allocated “crap sites for residential”, but this one is a green light for such until at least 2040 by the look of it. Planners in Sandwell are notorious for their secret meetings behind closed doors with businessmen, and this only looks set to continue to exclude the public who actually live in this rotten borough to which many of these conmen use as tips and then development opportunities.

The documents are impossible to read in the timescale of consultation , which ends on 20th March.

Worse is the bent downgrading of wildlife habitat and so called “biodiversity credits” so that Street and Co’s mates can build more using the tax payers remediation fund, that some c£nts abandoned or set up a tax dodging Jersey fake company to landbank from. Street and co appear welcoming of such schemes, so long as a surrogate in the UK is seen to handle the money. It’s as dodgy as Ibrahim Dogus’s laundry basket, as is their support of disgusting polluters like Severn Trent Water selling of land once in public ownership such as the scheme at Friar Park. 

I will deal with the recent disgraceful decision at the Coneygre site in due course.

Business and the construction industry benefit from this “build back better” agenda, which is part of a wider globalist one to landscape a “utopia” control of movement via “15 minute cities” .

Please engage in this “issues and options” consultation at this link before 2oth March. They are banking on lack of responses just to go through the motions of this appearing to be a consultation. Make sure your voice is heard, and keep a copy of anything you send.

ADDENDUM 5/3/23

Half way through this consultation, Sandwell council have pulled the call for sites downloadable form, and replaced it with a system where you have to log in to a third party consultation form. The call for sites map is terrible to use, and this further just appears to be the case that they only want agents of developers and landbankers to fill them out. 

 

If there was any way in which this dire company could blame its staff for personal injury they would try it, and unfortunately, with the right judge, they could probably buy the outcome of any litigation.

This piece from the 28th June 1963 Western Daily Press offers a dubious verdict to say the least. The case involved a Polish man at their Portishead factory. You can read about the detailed history of this phosphorus producing site HERE, which is of use to understanding the background to the manufacture of this substance at this time. This was just nine years after the plant had opened.

Albright and Wilson were a company that took on European labour after the Second World War, it was cheap and this workforce was expendable. When something went wrong, it would be Johnny foreigners fault, and this is a prime example where managers and staff gang up to cover up.

An earlier article I looked at involved the fatal demise of George Buck who was showered with white phosphorus. THIS WAS 1955, AND JUST 8 YEARS EARLIER. When attempting to unblock the pipe, he was horribly burnt, yet the verdict of this was “accidental death”.  😥 

I think the solicitor for this man should have raised this previous death and the circumstances and health and safety issues at this vile plant, which were directly modelled on that at Oldbury. Karas was also trying to clear a blocked pipe, something which was obviously a faulty occurrence at this shite factory. Who said what and when is now of course lost to history, but I do not believe those working at Albright and Wilson, as they were frequently caught out lying and gaslighting their workforce about heath and safety, and when something went wrong, it was either “accident” or the fault of an individual.

 

 

The landscape of John’s Lane leading to Temple Way has changed over the last couple of years. Firstly the boundary with John’s Lane appears to have  visually changed.

Take a look at these bing streetview images from 2013.

I’m not accusing anyone of  a lockdown landgrab into a driveway on the corner house, but I do note that the green area, bushes and railings have all now gone and having downloaded the title plan for this property,WM925796 it shows a different boundary to that which it now encompasses. This was part of the former sewage works development area approved on appeal in 2005 and part of the Barratt Homes new estate.

The other observation is unfortunately, the area is now swamped with badly parked cars on a daily basis at this junction. A carpark for Barnshaw Section Benders remains overgrown and underused, and I have no idea what folly is going on here with these benders, unless there is some desire to create more fucking housing on this small plot in the future?

You also get (usually EU foreign) HGV’s parking overnight blocking entry onto the John’s Lane section. A few weeks ago, some ass clowns decided to block the entire highway parking on the wrong side of the road for several days. The pictures show this clearly, and the vehicles are shamed below. I’ve no idea if these were dumped, but the first one did not even have a back licence plate so was driving illegally and stationed illegally as well.

The businesses around here are contributing to traffic chaos, because they do not appear to have a coherent parking plan, and it’s time that Sandwell council sorted this shit out, along with prosecuting the chicken shop trash who eat their cancer meals  from their cars and then chuck out the rubbish afterwards, oh and the flytipping as well. But this council appear to want to add even more houses on top of what is a car park nightmare already! They simply do not appear to understand the interface between business and residential use, and they cannot go together as this area is a prime example.

The Diamond bus company and the remnants of the SGS House decided to put up giant green screens- without any planning permission to make the entrance even more depressing, and this too now appears to be a full carpark, with the half demolished building taking up a waste of space to the rear alongside two clapped out buses.

 

Into this mix, the failed black country plan where extra housing was favoured in the lower Tividale area has now gone tits up as I have looked at before.

The main elephant in the room in this wider area however is the ever expanding Balaji Temple- (of which “Temple Way” was not named after; the street came years before the 1992 approved religious façade). It is frankly embarrassing to see the throngs of stationary cars stuck along  Dudley Road East like a conveyor belt processing factory on Sundays all heading for the white building. Emergency vehicles cannot get through and there is no way around it because of this building’s punters who are cascading there by vehicles.

Even a right of way was swallowed up in this separatist gated off community, and the council attempted to legally challenge this only to scandalously lose the case via a Bristol based inspector. The Temple’s expansion however is typical of religious minority one up man ship for ever bigger buildings over their rival religious competitors and which plays out against a lesser publicised background of religious sectarianism and the nationalist politics of foreign countries. The political class however remain keen to court this block vote and so there is little point in ever opposing such self serving and singular expansion plans. Oh well, fancy a charity curry night anyone? 😥

Meanwhile with more housing being built in Oldbury Town Centre, some jokers think that even more houses on the Temple Way estate is a viable scheme. It certainly is not and the Dudley Road cannot take any more traffic. If every one of these houses has the standard 2+ cars that are typical of the area, how exactly does this bulging network accommodate this? Sandwell are just one of many authorities that are also part of the so called “15 minute cities” agenda of coercion and limiting of free movement. One wonders if the overload in areas like this is a deliberate part of that wider aim?

 

And then there are SMBC’s so called 2030 ambitions and air quality monitoring data. Once again they pander to their “faith group” coercive controllers for “behaviour change” in attempting to reduce traffic journeys- what a joke.

ASR_Sandwell_MBC_2022

 

 

One of Andy “keep the faith”  Street’s fantasy metro routes is called “The Macarthur line”, which would impossibly run through the Temple Way area at some point- and perhaps even along the Dudley Road itself.  😛 They really are fucking brainless aren’t they. Well- Dudley laying 300 yards in two years and run out of money to get to Brierley Hill- Perhaps schedule in a 2075 vision of how it might look.  😆  😆  😆

 

So you thought that you were having a bad day? Spare a thought for this poor bastard from history! This misadventure involves a case of phossy jaw and early attempts to investigate the unsafe practices being undertaken at scumbag match manufacturers who cared only about their vile unsafe product containing white phosphorus and not the health and safety of their workforce. Most of these were child abusers and abusers of women also.

The case of Thomas Davis told in the Birmingham Daily Post of 6th April 1907 is tragic in that it appears he was firstly injured and then killed by this employer, and perhaps must have been one of the most unfortunate and accident prone blokes to set foot in such an establishment. Starting as a labourer, he lost a leg and then ended up picking up splints of phosphorus for lucifer matches.

It was hypothesised that he chewed baccy as he sat picking up contaminated material and could have transferred p4 to his mouth by doing this; a filthy habit that cost him his life. It is however stated that he had been employed in the industry for some time and that long tern exposure could have resulted.

The recommended actions as a result of the report are fairly meaningless.

1 To employ only adult males at the dipping tables. – Screw the men then!

2 To provide gloves for this purpose

3. To redesign the “fork” used to pick up the splints of phosphorus.

4 Put sawdust on the floor- what the fuck would this do except aid a fire?

5. Ban tobacco chewing in the workplace

6 Inspecting the paupers hands for cleanliness!

The most bizarre statement made in the report is that short of banning white phosphorus matches or making the process automated there was nothing else that could be done. Of course this statement is the elephant in the room here in that white phosphorus matches SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALLOWED, AND THAT ANY CARING GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE BANNED THEM OUTRIGHT TO START WITH!

It also shows again how the Berne Convention was a fraud and that workers were still being harmed after its pompous announcement in this country till at least 1910.  

The manufacturer in question was S.J. Moreland and Sons eventually consumed by the Quaker scum Bryant and May. The main product made was a match known as  “England’s Glory. ”

Earlier, another report by Thomas Oliver from 1904 “Industrial Diseases due to certain Poisonous Fumes or Gases Phosphorus, Sulphuretted Hydrogen,
Carbon Monoxide “ had looked at phosphorus poisoning and can be read below, giving some interesting context to match manufacture with phosphorus in Britain, and also cases of phossy jaw that were reported. This of course may not have been accurate due to the commercial concerns of the discredited match industry and early public relations.  Phosphorus necrosis may also have only been detected many years after being exposed to it- so even the “ban” was a red herring.  

b28270320

“Prevalence of Industrial Phosphorus Poisoning.

The total number of cases of phosphorus poisoning in Britain coming under the provision
of the Factory Act, and of which there are definite records during the 20 years
ending December, 1899, is 102, and of these 19 terminated fatally.

Since then the following cases have been notified to the Chief Inspector of Factories : —
           Cases.  Deaths.

1900     4             0
1901      4             0
1902      3             1                                                                   

1903      0             0
From 1880-1903

              113           20

What those completing the 1907 report fail to have grasped are the airborne  fumes of phosphorus rather than the physical product itself. Oliver three years earlier noted

“Phosphorus fumes are known to be harmful to animal tissues, including
bone. Prof. Thorpe found, on exposing decayed teeth to the fumes of phosphorus for 12 hours that they lost 0″37 per cent, of their weight, also when carious teeth were crushed and exposed to a dilute solution of phosphoric acid (1 per cent.) that they lost 8’9 per cent, of their original weight.

In the air of a dipping room of a match factory Thorpe* found 0’02
milligrammes of phosphorus per 100 litres of air, while the same quantity of air of the boxing room contained 0.12 milligrammes of phosphorus. After working
on an average four hours each, 22 employees in a match factory were caused to wash their hands in a particular basin of water. On analysing the water
Thorpe found 37’3 milligrammes of phosphorus.”

This therefore concludes that phossy water was produced from hands being washed, one of the recommendations from the ill conceived report from above.

It is also interesting that Oliver noted in 1904 ”

“The manufacture of phosphorus at Oldbury, near Birmingham, is attended
with little risk to health as it is carried on mechanically and in covered-in vessels. Necrosis, however, is not unknown there.”

I’m afraid this was bullshit, and no doubt he had been nobbled into believing this by the Quaker freaks. We know that phossy jaw cases continued at Albright and Wilson into the 1960s!

Of course, there is probably little doubt as to where the white phosphorus that killed Thomas Davis originated- that would be the same place in Oldbury where manufacture of the unnatural poison would also kill people there. 

 

Ten years ago this blog set out to tell the real story of Rattlechain lagoon and its murky history, a history protected by authority and Britain’s dirty wartime past. It set out to show how industrial pollution affects the environment, wildlife and communities who are lied to by the polluters, their useless regulators and by the political class who ease the process of widescale dumping and then imaginatively use public money to convert said dumping sites into “quality homes”. The attempted cover up “remediation” of this site in 2013 was the starting point to tell a story which had been unfolding 14 years prior to this and for many more years before I came upon the scene as a direct witness.

In the early days I dutifully reported issues to the likes of The Environment Agency, Sandwell Council, the HSE and others only to be hit with a wall of incompetence and buck passing, and even attempting to stop me finding out the truth by  the Veterinary Laboratories Agency. The public sector civil servants in these agencies are either shit at their jobs or bent, and nowhere is this more apparent in their help of the construction industry and developers in covering up historic pollution.

Hundreds of hours of work have gone into this website, visits around the country and a treasure trail of information uncovering the past deeds of bent bastards and shady Government dealings.

In many ways I have succeeded in these endeavours and will continue to expose those who seek to cover up the grimy past of disgusting companies like Albright and Wilson and Rhodia, their apologists and cronies in office. I would like to thank Steve, Tony Larner, Adam Aspinall, and Danny Halpin for their help and advice in bringing matters into the public domain amongst others.

As for the lagoon, Rhodia/Solvay’s bogus remediation scheme is not complete, and it is vital that people are aware of why they did not cap the secondary small lagoon with a geotextile membrane during their 2013 cover up works.

Part of this site goes off the site onto The Autobase industrial estate and so does the historic contamination buried beneath the surface. The lagoon site is evolving phosphine gas, whatever lies they try to peddle otherwise, and it is impossible chemically that this is not happening which is why the smaller lagoon filters this via the causeway dividing path as an attenuation pond. They spent a large amount of money constructing a pier as part of the 2013 coverup works, only to pump water from the larger lagoon all this time as the smaller lagoon is too contaminated to allow discharge to the controlled waters of The Birmingham Canal. Come on Rhodia/Solvay, tell the truth and not your fucking semantic lies!

The bird deaths have continued to be recorded, though not in the numbers they once were, and we now no longer get any post mortems which would be inconvenient for the company concerned.

 

As with the 1990’s, the next chapter involving this site will no doubt be the scheming bastards who wish to create houses around its perimeter and even on top if they can get away with it. Such is the likely endeavour of the Wealdstone Raider Riddler and the Walsall Penguin from his Pheasey Legoland fiefdom in protecting their “precious” green belt land. We are also likely to get “Blair Witch project 2” as a government in the next 3 years just to make matters even worse, but really there is little difference. 😥 We should all watch that public money is not given to such schemes and plans  in “cleaning up” private  “brownfield” land, landbanked away for decades via some tax evasion orifice. The construction industry is now out for all it can like a drowning rat basking in the last days of summer with any land it can grab for houses in urban areas being swallowed. The ownership of former public land owned by Severn Trent Water is being marketed by political actors who fail to ever speak out on this private company Coventry crapster water fraud- I wonder why?

“Keep out of the green and in the brown, nice views for Tories and fuck the towns.”

The most important thing about this site is that people are aware of white phosphorus and its lethal and evil use. There is no legitimate use for this unnatural chemical weapon, its manufacture and sale; there never has been, and its effects on wildlife and people need to be known so that military liars and Governmental murdering scum do not get away with calling it “smokescreen” any longer. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU, except if you worked for Albright and Wilson or Rhodia, in which case UP YER BUM!!

Yes it’s that time of year when Solvay push a calendar through local doors blowing their own trumpets, and trying to keep a lid on their own apparatus in the vile production units containing enough dangerous chemicals to wipe out an entire city.

This year, tomorrow to be exact, marks 14 years to the day since they released a toxic assault onto the local area.

It took years for the truth to come out about that one.

 

                 >>>>>>DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CALENDAR BELOW<<<<<< 

TOXIC CALENDAR 2023

Don’t forget,

The information contained in this calendar is important- please keep it in a *safe place *(preferably not in Oldbury).  😆

 

 

Suffer the little children at Christmas- especially if they were from the British Empire where they were certainly of less value and had less protection.

This misadventure from Pakistan is told in the Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore) 17th September 1925. 

I have looked at how the phoney Berne Convention did not really ban matches containing phosphorus for many years after it had been drawn up. 

In the rest of the world, obviously as this article attests, the use of P4 continued, in of all things children’s “toys”. FFS!

Not only was this cheap produced crap highly toxic containing mercury and white phosphorus, it was also highly flammable. One wonders at the luxuries of George V’s England at this time and images of Christmas cards and a time before war came again.

I do wonder if Albright and Wilson made stuff like this and exported it abroad, unaware and completely uncaring as to what use it would be put. Maybe as long as they did not know, their pathetic “Quaker” cult would be cleansed of its sins.

 

This is the second of three posts concerning this abandoned former waste disposal lake in Oldbury, the first of which can be read HERE. It also serves as a warning about the so called “brownfield” sites promoted by certain politicians using public money to put right dire private company charades.

The demise of Accles and Pollock, and their “Apollo Sports” brand appears to have affected their operations at their Paddock works lagoon site in terms of limiting their activities. I am not sure however as to why it had apparently appeared to have been allowed to have continued for so long- especially after the creation of the Environment Agency in 1996.

In apparent receivership, their receivers PWC were sent the following Section 41 notice by The Environment Agency on 12/2/2002.

SECTION41 NOTICE

This appears to be more about failure to pay the EA money, rather than failure to operate such a disgusting site (which was the regulator’s failure), to the tune of £33,225. This suspended the licence to tip waste until the debt had been paid.

 

Some relevant information is contained in the Companies house receivers report (April 2000) below.

companies_house_document

 

 

Concern had been expressed however publicly about this mothballed site well before the EA stepped in as debt collectors. The following article is taken from the 29/5/2001 Express and Star where Conservative Councillor Bill Archer was calling for a probe into the acid waste lagoon. It is interesting to note that Bill Archer was a Wednesbury councillor, but at this time got involved in many areas where the local labour councillors failed to act or ask any questions. I would state that in Oldbury ward, there were and remain many questions about such historic hazardous waste dumps, and the way in which they have been effectively abandoned, and why political action or criticism of these industrial concerns has been so mute?

The article confirms that the company had gone bust in 2000, but the lagoon and its contents had sat idle. The EA claim that no leakage into controlled waters had taken place, but I am somewhat sceptical that the EA were even monitoring for this given their officer’s abysmal record at the time at rattlechain lagoon as well as elsewhere in the local area.

Local environmental campaigner Fred Hadley had found that permission to tip at the site was still valid, despite the company no longer being active. The EA confirmed that the licence had not been surrendered. (I have never been sure as to if this Fred Hadley was the same ex-employee of Albright and Wilson, but perhaps not).

“Anybody could buy it and carry on dumping.”

The article also states the quantities of materials allowed to be deposited.

• 396 tonnes of hydrochloric acid
• 15 tonnes of sulphuric acid
• 900 tonnes of acid and polluted water.

The failure of Sandwell council to comment is also noted in this regard, when they allowed the said operation to continue for many years. 

Fred Hadley had in fact been involved in other matters in the local area including Allsopps Quarry. He also spoke out about the tipping misery continuing at the former Duport’s tip development area by rattlechain lagoon being extended. It is therefore quite ironic as to what transpired with the acid lake next, and the man must be hailed as some form of prophet in this regard, as someone did come along and dump more waste, that entity being the same one who had despoiled the land at both Coneygree in Tipton, as well as the site he had commented on in Tividale.

In 2004 Mintworth appeared on the scene, obviously looking for a brand-new dumping opportunity to offload more sand and associated into a vacant hole. They had at this point remember achieved their twin peaks in the local area already with Duport and Coneygree, (without finalising either for anything), but why not go for the triple!

This application would be numbered DC/04/42934. 

It is interesting to note that in correspondence form B submitted with this application, the owners of the site are listed as “CLEEVE INVESTMENTS LIMITED”– a company registered in Jersey. But who exactly were their directors? We will look at this company and their activities in the third part of this instalment. 

It appears from correspondence that early discussions and meetings had taken place with some of the key players in the SMBC planning department at this time, principally John “it’s a crap site for residential” Baylay, and Tony Rice. Both of these individuals would be heavily involved with Mintworth’s desire to acquire planning permission to build houses on the former Tividale sewage works, (“the crap site for residential”), and the council opposition to this in light of the adjacency to rattechain lagoon. This matter was ongoing at this time, and there is no doubt that solicitors acting for Mintworth are mischievous in their line of questioning in attempting to trip up the SMBC planning duo in respect of this, using this separate planning application vehicle.

There is no mention of “calcium phosphate sludge” being used at all at the Apollo lagoon in its entire history, and this was never a part of the waste from this site. It is of course a reference to the fake waste profile put forward by Albright and Wilson/ Rhodia at rattlechain- which was heavily contaminated by other hazardous chemicals mixed in with this. This is a pathetic question from this law firm, as is the lead on about restoration. Neither has anything to do with this application- and not of rattlechain either. They are not therefore “SEPARATE AND DISCRETE MATTERS” but a ruse to be used at a future planning enquiry against the council.

There is then the bizarre claim that Mintworth were considering tipping asbestos waste at this site, which I think is absolute bollocks. There is obviously more at play with this question, and I am not entirely sure what they were getting at here in respect of the Apollo lagoon itself. The council would be very unlikely to grant such permission for this type of material, or if the EA would even allow it either.

 

Robert Lee of SMBC eventually wrote a reply to this nonsense in September, perhaps thinking carefully about the answers and in light of the fact of the ongoing issue with the council’s refusal of the sewage works scheme and upcoming planning enquiry.

The points to take here are

• There is no established use for this site, which preceded the 1948 Town and Country Planning Act.
• The theoretical dumping of asbestos would need a planning permission.
• The council had contacted the environment agency who were seeking more information about their plans.
• Lee ends on the note that responses were given in “good faith”, knowing full well they would be taken and used against the council in the future by the recipients without a doubt.

 

In the following letter dated 16th March 2004, the EA responds to John Baylay , this deals with calcium phosphate, (nothing to do with this application whatsoever) but is interesting in its statements from a rattlechain perspective.

DC_04_42934-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_COMMENTS-449611

 

The type of material deposited in rattlechain lagoon was from the waste processes of their factory site, and so would be classed as “hazardous waste” given that it contained just that. The percentage within that is irrelevant, as is the fact that if this were pure calcium phosphate- a commercial material as highlighted, Rhodia would not be throwing it away but selling it. As the process of recovery of this material is not cost effective, it means that the sludge is hazardous. This little stunt from Mintworth and their solicitors was not really very clever and did not help their cause.

There are reasons why Mintworth were pursuing this (i) Mintworth trying to get an opinion on the nature of waste they claimed was being dumped at rattlechain from the EA/council perspective.

(ii) to overcome Rhodia’s/Eversheds objections potentially to the sewage works scheme- they would have another alternative site to dump into- as a potential land exchange deal with Mintworth?

(iii) Did they think that they could fill the Apollo lagoon with calcium phosphate themselves as a side line?

The application details are listed below. N.B The “inert material” is not specified, but we all know that it would not be cottage cheese.  😆

There is very little information provided in the received form dated 6th July 2004, especially as to what end use was being considered.

DC_04_42934-FULL__MAJOR_-616265

A supporting letter from the agent of Bea Landscape Design, whom I believe have direct family connection to those at Mintworth can be read below.

DC_04_42934-SUPPORTING_LETTER_FROM_AGENT-449610

The proposed contours of BEA can be found below.

DC_04_42934-PROPOSED_CONTOURS-22681

There is a transport statement submitted which can be read below about how the proposed material would be delivered to the site, in light of it being in a major commercial vehicle and business area- not least the council tip over the road.

DC_04_42934-SUPPORTING_LETTERS-449609

There are two interesting observations in this document-

(i) the proposed number of loads infilling this site per hour at 15, though it is not stated where they were coming from or from what distance- this causing more issues outside of the immediate area itself?

(ii) The proposed timescale that the works would be taking place in- i.e “between 3 and 4 years”. We of course know Mintworth’s failure to deliver schemes to planning permission timescale at both Coneygre, and certainly at the Duport/sewage works debacle which lasted over twice as long as proposed– and so it would prove with this also!

The council appeared to have their own concerns, and these were allegedly updated in 2005, which can be read below.

DC_04_42934-TRANSPORT_STATEMENT_ADDENDUM-449604

Once again, we get yet another report from Sladen Associates, (yawn) who appear in every Mintworth planning application praising the benefits of tipping foundry sand into holes, without any apparent fallout or concern in doing so.

There is a history of the site blended with a very basic summary of the “acidic” water they claim was dumped into here. As evidenced by the site licence, there was far more going on than this, but this didn’t suit the proposal to infill.

More concerningly, we get exactly the same delay at dealing with mine shaft issues and settlement as I have seen with the planning applications at Coneygree. Sladen claim that these aspects are not important for this application, yet they are because you do not just go to the effort of offloading something into a hole without some end purpose in mind? Or do you if you are just dumping a waste material?

They note “potential” for some ground and ground water contamination  🙄 and even have the guile to mention foundry sand, so oft used by their clients for similar schemes, and note the contamination of this sand with metals and organic binders. This had been pointed out in fact to their clients during discussions about the “rattlechain tip” licence in the early 1990’s.

Due to the poor controls discussed before in the weak licence for this site from 1978, and of course for decades of no licence prior to this, I think the word “potential” is rather disingenuous.

There is then the long enviro check report, which as ever pads out such reports. The most interesting thing regards this is the fact that the site is confirmed to be on top of a historic landfill site SL137, that we know of course the licence of which had never been surrendered. It is worth once again reading the licence and what it allowed, though Sladen omit such matters.

Shidas Lane lagoon waste management licence and modifications

DC_04_42934-PRELIMINARY_GEO-ENVIRONMENTAL_ASSESSMENT-22679

The following method statements were also submitted by Sladen.

DC_04_42934-ATTACHMENT_A_METHOD_STATEMENT-907300

This dealt with the three mine shafts, which it considered “not practicable to treat” prior to infilling. Why not? One would note if this was widely adopted methodology, as to why their clients had failed to achieve this at their Coneygree site, where they were also advising them in planning applications.

Further descriptions are given as to the placement of the fill which can be read below.

DC_04_42934-ATTACHMENT_B_METHOD_STATEMENT-907301

A diagram of this method statement is shown below.

DC_04_42934-PROPOSED_LAGOON_INFILLING_WORKS-907302

Though Sladen describe not disturbing the sludge within the lagoon, I am not sure that they adequately characterise what they are actually filling over.

The Environment Agency responded to the consultation below in a letter dated 23/8/2004. Their only comments at this time were standard drainage and pollution prevention issues.

DC_04_42934-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_COMMENTS-449611

Further letters would be received from them inviting further questions of the applicants. The letter of 30/3/2005 stated that there was a “previous” site licence which had been “disclaimed” by the liquidators.

It would therefore require a new PPC permit to undertake any infilling. They also anticipated some form of conditions to prevent pollution of contaminated lagoon water to ground water or surface waters.

DC_04_42934-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_CONSULTATION-449606

A further letter dated 19/5/2005 states that they had reviewed the Sladen report but had asked additional questions concerning the PPC permit which had not yet been received.

DC_04_42934-ENVIRONMENT_AGENCY_CONSULTATION-449625

The committee report of May 18th 2005 saw the following report written by John Baylay.

DC_04_42934-COMMITTEE_REPORT_AND_SUPPORTING_PLANS-176930

DC_04_42934-COMMITTEE_REPORT-158331

This decision was deferred for further information and came back on 31/8/05.

This states that the initial infilling would be with sand, yet no further information regards what was to be deposited on top of this were included. It is stated that it would not be “waste”, yet of course, foundry sand is nothing other than a waste material, and so I am not sure why Baylay et al had not challenged or asked this point to be clarified, particularly knowing exactly what Mintworth were well known for. It is further stated that the infilling would be to the levels of the surrounding land- and we of course know that Mintworth never do that as Baylay was well aware FFS!

The contaminated land team at SMBC even asked what the inert materials were on 18/5 committee report. No answer came as Baylay’s updated report states

 

 

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Unsurprisingly of course, the application was passed with 22 conditions attached.

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Some of these specified that the applicants needed to state what the materials were, as well as not exceeding the proposed levels. Condition 18 especially should be noted.

“18. The finished levels shall not exceed those shown on the approved plans”

Some time passed before Sladen Associates letter regarding the conditions. This is dated 31st January 2006, and we finally are told that the inert material was to be “clean crushed rock sand” and not foundry sand. Mintworth would be starting dumping in the next month.

Also please note that they “agreed” to condition 18 in that the levels would not be exceeded, and thus committed to this condition without excuses being made. The fact that they were seeking for the conditions to be discharged after agreeing would be shown to be a disingenuous lie on that basis.

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The EA response was pretty short. Given their experiences with this company over the previous two decades, was it really believable that they would comply with the conditions as passed? Past experience had shown that NOT to be the case.

Another email however from a P Langford in SMBC stated that there were still points of concern regards the works.

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Similarly, the contaminated land team in Sandwell, who of course we know are shit, also had very little to say. All they appear to be interested in are theoretical reports claiming that nothing is amiss with the works. It is exactly this type of exercise as to why there is so much contaminated land in Sandwell to start with. As it is, I am not convinced that the likes of Baylay et al would have even studied or bothered to read or challenge anything in such, given their previous failures to do so.

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John Baylay wrote to Sladen on 20/3/2006 confirming the discharge of several conditions.

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We can see that in 2006, a perimeter track present around the lagoon, and infilling works apparently proceeding. As with their other sites, the greenery around the lake has been destroyed.

The following month reveals even further demise of the surroundings and the pool receding under the dune sands of Mintworth.

By 2007, as with every other Mintworth operation in the local area, there appear to have been complaints as to their methods of on site operation, as the letter below from Sandwell Council perfectly demonstrates- remember the 3-4 year timeframe for completion? Concern was expressed about the offsite spoil they were making being a danger to the highway.

By August of that year, the lagoon had dried up completely to be replaced by the vacuous mess below. The Mintworth mud pie was not getting any better and a collection of ramshackle sheds and vehicles appear to be collecting on the site.

But yet the tipping continued, well past the date it should have stopped, and well over the levels approved under the planning conditions years earlier, and which their technical agents Sladen Associates had “agreed” to- thus making both their words absolute lies and bullshit. Mintworth had once again flouted planning permissions as they had at both Rattlechain Tip (Duport’s tip in reality), and at Coneygree.

Their answer to this was once again to abuse the planning process with yet more excuses in the form of another planning application for retrospective permission.

DC/10/52117 | Variation of condition 18 of planning permission DC/04/42934 (Infill of lagoon with inert materials) to allow for the temporary raising of the approved levels so that on the land additional fill can be placed to surcharge the infill material to achieve sufficient bearing capacity. | Apollo Lagoon On The North Side Of Shidas Lane Oldbury

Condition 18 of the 2004 planning permission was remember thus:

“18. The finished levels shall not exceed those shown on the approved plans”

The initial contact sheet being handled by “Bea Landscape Design” shows their client of the same Wolverhampton address as the misspelt “Minworth Limited”. 

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The new contour drawing by BEA is noted in that the client is now “Cleeve Investments Limited”.

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Bea also provided a bullshit letter admitting that the loads brought onto the site had breached planning permissions. The tall story stated that the ground bearing capacity to enable future development was not satisfactory meaning that more weight from infill materials had been placed. This therefore means that Sladen Associates original engineering forecast was shite, and in that they were not competent to agree to such conditions to start with and had also misled the planning authority to discharge condition 18 on that basis. One could argue if they or their clients ever intended to stick to that condition to start with, I would say not based on their previous behaviour at their other sites where they had instigated the same modus operandi.

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The planning application form is once again interesting in that the named owner of the site is the Jersey registered address for “Cleeve Investments Limited.”

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The council wrote to the agents stating that the application was incomplete given that the site plan was not provided. I actually wonder here if the council were getting them to commit to a red line area given their clients tendency to operate outside of agreed parameters for dumping more than agreed?

This was then supplied.

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John Baylay then wrote again on 9/8/2010 requesting more information and a number of technical questions, probably in full knowledge of the absolute bullshit for which this company were known for requesting more time, breaching the original conditions, breaching agreed revised conditions and then coming up with another bullshit excuse for failing in that before finally abandoning the site completely.  He asked them to respond within 14 days, and yet that did not happen.

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The EA response was a typical wash their hands of this situation in that they state that the drainage officer at the council should comment on the flooding issues of muddy water run off that were resulting from the elevated unapproved levels at the site.

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On September 15th 2010 Baylay took this application to committee, without having anything of substance from the applicants. At this stage, the application should have been rejected, especially given that he was in full knowledge of the conditions breach and that this had been happening for some time. This application was very much on his watch, as the ones at Duport’s Tip and Coneygree had also been on his watch and Sandwell Council had failed to sufficiently monitor for, with the applicants taking the piss with every one.

DC_10_52117-COMMITTEE_REPORT___SUPPORTING_DOCUMENTS-445648 (2)

Baylay states that the original approved levels had been exceeded by eight metres! I mean this is the height of a three story house for fucks sake, what the hell were the planning authority monitoring? The amount of sand defies belief in that this was NOT a waste material that was being offloaded on the cheap in bulk for extra income.

It is stated that the owner of the adjacent Percy Business Park had objected to the proposals given that he had been suffering loss due to the Mintworth operations flooding the area and had been raising this for some time. This therefore confirms, that just like the residents of two estates Baylay et al from SMBC could not have given a fuck about those concerns and instead batted for the highly dubious infiller. He doubted that the levels would be removed, and that the application timescale would be adhered to- a wise man given the knowledge of the previous Baylay/SMBC approved applications at other sites.

Despite this, the application appears to have been deferred for more information.

On 13/10/10, some two months after Baylay had requested a two-week response BEA replied to the questions asked.

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It is interesting to note that Sladen Associates were not providing any monitoring results for this for question three, but rather John Hurst of Mintworth. I would question if the results from the client were sufficiently independently valid?  🙄 This file is askew and sideways and upside down, rather apt under the circumstances as to what had been occurring at the site.  😀

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I am not sure what John Baylay made of this, or how it could even be sufficiently verifiably confirmed as accurate.

It is further astonishing that this application effectively disappeared off the planning radar

until January 2012! WHY WAS IT ALLOWED TO LAY IDLE IN FULL KNOWLEDGE OF BREACH OF PLANNING CONDITIONS SEEKING RETROSPECTIVE PERMISSION, ALLOWED TO CONTINUE RETROSPECTIVELY WITHOUT VALID PERMISSION BEING GRANTED FOR SUCH OR ACTION TAKEN BY SANDWELL PLANNING AUTHORITY? THIS WAS PERMISSION GRANTED BY DEFAULT, WITHOUT ANY COUNCILLOR VOTING FOR IT.  

It is also noteworthy that in the period concerned, I noted Mintworth agents tatting for metal at the abandoned Duport’s tip site, also raising issues with this same planning officer, only for him to bat them away without him actually visiting the site top see what was going in there himself. Quite honestly, I always found his many decisions in relation to this companies planning applications very strange indeed. 

 

The next thing we see on file is from December 2011 and the reappearance of Sladen Associates who write to John Hurst of Mintworth.

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This letter is quite ludicrous and again I would state cannot be verified independently by SMBC. It also asks for yet another year- oh what a surprise!

This endless and apparently “blank cheque Baylay” open application finally went to committee on 25/1/2012. 

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The effective permission granted by default- due entirely to the delay of the applicant in providing evidence for the retrospective permission was recommended by Mr B for another 18 months- a year for settlement, and 6 months to remove materials.

Of course, the nodding dogs of the planning committee allowed it without question.

 

Whether the material settled and at what point it was removed is now lost to time, but these pictures from 2017 show that a few years after, the site became another abandoned and unrealised “development site”- thus not immediately being suitable for the purpose for which this planning officer recommended approval.

If only some public money could be obtained to finally “settle” this longstanding toxic wreck of a site strangely owned by a tax haven registered company in Jersey- ah that forms the next part of this story……

 

 

OPINION

Politicians it seems have no real imagination except “reinventing” old schemes that they think the public have forgotten.  Their “growth” agenda using public cash strangely seems tied to private business.

One of the worst examples of this is Andy Street- a mayor so pointless that many would not even recognise him in the West Midlands; a Jim Henson creation ferret but without the charisma, and with a fetish for public transport creation schemes that never materialise. And yet his power of influence allows him the ear of Government to literally dictate which areas can be built upon and which can be saved from development- the clue is the Labour voting areas are the ones that are to be built on- particularly as that party cannot manage money and go cap in hand for Government cash whenever they can by pleading “poverty”. He picks and chooses which areas are “brownfield” and which are greenspace, for example contrast Brandhall Golf course with the Lion Farm Fields- which he has not really outpoured his opposition to given that Conservative party donor Jeremy Knight Adams has been in long discussions with Sandwell council about destroying them.

We should therefore be very weary of any out tray “new” announcements that this man and his office make, and spirit level stimulus injections of “Government” cash given the track record of his championed disasters like the Smethwick hospital, H$2 and the metro line which spiral in costs and delays in perpetuity, and all vocally championed from the Wealdstone Raider’s microphone like a fishy queef.

Labour and Conservatives offer nothing to this area via Government except the same poison chalice. They are a spent and busted flush with no ideas except recycling old ones- much like trains, they come along every ten years with the same idea, and all at once like busses.  The area does not need a “fairy Godfather” or Wizard of Odd character who keeps appearing for photo opportunities at every turn down the line, it doesn’t need a “champion” or “celebrity” endorsement either.

Over the last several years, Dudley Council has wasted the time of all the other local authorities, as well as the public with at first “The Black Country Core Strategy” and then “The Black Country Plan”. Their officers put together this crock of shite, deliberately making it incomprehensible and impossible to read, except if you are well versed in such documents, or retired. Of course, this fits the profile of the greenbelters from Tentenhall and areas bordering South Staffordshire who were up in arms about their view being spoilt by more housing. The black country it appears has to be built on to take the “invasion” scum from the south, dumped upon it by Whitehall mandarins. Then Dudley decided to pull the plug and withdraw from their own constructed plan- was this always the intention- I do think it very much was.

The cost to the taxpayer from these public sector political crooks is eyewatering. 

For those who remember The Black Country Development Corporation of the late 80’s and 90’s, the West Midlands Combined Authority is just the reinvention. It sets targets and gives opportunity to construction investors with firms registered in tax havens who shit on the area with their “growth” schemes and land banking.  Some of these have dual companies registered in the UK and in Jersey for example to avoid tax. The tax man should be paying close attention to grants given out to the UK arm, and if this is being siphoned off abroad to the clone. Leave a site derelict and mothballed for years and then wait till a taxpayer funded scheme comes along to remediate land that had been abandoned many years before with no intention of ever “cleaning up” for an end purpose.

Their officers meet in secret to destroy green space and shit on the lives of local people with the schemers and then facilitate deals and planning applications and “masterplans” behind their backs which are almost impossible to stop through the bent constructed planning process, stacked in their favour by the political class. They also go on taxpayer expense holidays to the South of France once a year.

Now that DMBC have screwed the other councils over, it now appears that a new name has been given to the worst of the Black Country Plan in the form of “investment zones”. In Sandwell this appears to be the old  Dudley Port Supplementary Planning Document from 2017.  SMBC as well as Street appear intent on building houses next to the failed Metro line to Brierley Hill and surrounding and condemning those who live in this area to even more squalor and overcrowding to save the tory voters fucking “greenbelt”- private agricultural land with no purpose except being land banked by them.

The blurb reads

“Sandwell Investment Zone: A compelling collection of brownfield sites around the route of the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro extension (many within 15 mins walk from the extension), including schemes at Wednesbury and Tipton, creating new housing and industrial space, and regenerating existing industrial premises”

Michael Gove, it seems has recently poured a bit of cold water over the eager beavers, and perhaps a rebuke to Street who backed the absolute total loser and waste of fucking space, Liz Truss in the recent PM shambles. He states that investment zones should not go ahead if they damage the environment- WELL MR GOVE, THIS SCHEME WILL CERTAINLY DO THAT! 

I have also previously outlined this so called “Dudley port Supplementary planning document” in 2017. Around 400 local residents and users of Sheepwash Nature Reserve signed a petition which was handed in to Sandwell Council at the time, but they stated that it would be more appropriate to be considered at the time when the allocations came up for review- which was of course The Black Country Plan.

I have now forwarded this petition demonstrating “the strength of opposition from the local community” to local MP for West Bromwich West Shaun Bailey- and he can do with it what he likes- either backing the residents, or his colleagues “investment zones” like Andy Street.  Already, he is aware of just how much of his constituency is developed, how much of the green space is devalued as “brownfield“, and hopefully he is too savvy to believe the spin about “urban villages” and “garden cities” which will develop and destroy even more of the little we have left. 

 

 The “misery” of the ten-year tipping operation that supposedly was to take two has been documented HERE.  We cannot and should not accept a return to this absolute fucking planning farce again, the section 73 conman show begging for more time so more shit could be tipped, and the planning appeals decided by some c£nt in Bristol. 

 

#STOPTHEGARDENCITY

#INVEST IN GREEN SPACE WITH NO STRINGS

 

Another instance of parental neglect combined with the dangers of phosphorus was reported in The Loughborough Echo of 22nd August 1913. 

It is revealed that two brothers, one aged ten and the other twelve had been playing with a crude but still viable firearm. Their engineer father obviously had more to do with this contraption than is mentioned in the article, as it involved what appears to be his workshop where the tragedy took place.

The phosphorus from a box of matches, I would assume red in this case, was used as the “gunpowder” with a lead bullet put into the barrel. The contraption was secured in a vice with one brother standing in the line of fire in the shed.  Dick committed fratricide by inadvertently firing the gun by the action of friction with the phosphorus.

Playing with matches was a painful lesson for poor George who was shot through the heart with the bullet.