What Lies Beneath Rattlechain Lagoon?

This white phosphorus misadventure involves yet another common theme, foolish youth associated with dangerous chemicals. I suppose some people never grow up and continue to play with them in industry- per Albright and Wilson.  😈

To Scotland then and the 2nd May 1951 Edinburgh Evening News , where a couple of wee Jimmies got more than they bargained for when playing with the Devil’s element.

Apparently, the two Glaswegian youngsters did not know that Phosphorus has to be stored in water, and again one of them put it in their pocket after nicking some from school. Obviously, his behind or jock parts were badly burned in the incident, which also affected passengers on the tram who tried to douse the flames. No time for trainspotting here then.  😆

So I suppose the moral of the story is, if you are going to put P4 in your pocket, it might help to keep it moist.  😛  😆  😆

 

There is a major problem with Sandwell Council’s planning department in the way in which they are working for applicants and NOT for the public.

Many examples have come to light about officers scheming with developers who just happen to be party political donors, and also the scandal of land sales by a councillor on a committee to do so which benefitted his developer son- who also worked in the planning department at SMBC!

I have already given examples of my experiences with them in the form of the CCTV permissions at Rattlechain, and  with the Gower Tip fiasco, and now I have found more evidence of applications which Solvay put in regards Hazardous Substance consents,  (dangerous and flammable chemicals they can store and handle on site), which had reportedly been shelved, yet it now emerges that HS/040 was given consent in 2020.  👿

The history of this application is as follows. I have now also added a page to the list of HSC’s already put in the public domain on this website. THIS INFORMATION IS IMPORTANT FOR ANYONE LIVING IN THE AREA TO KNOW, BUT SANDWELL COUNCIL FOR WHATEVER REASONS KNOWN UNTO ITSELF APPEARS TO WANT TO HIDE IT FROM PUBLIC VIEW. 

I first mentioned this consent application after being contacted by a concerned resident of Langley in August 2018.

You can read about this in THIS POST.

I mentioned here that Sandwell council had deliberately removed all mention of detail of the hazardous substance consents at Trinity Street, as well as giving little information about this latest application. The only opinion I can form from the removal of this key information that was once there is that whoever instructed this or did this is a bent officer or a shill of this company. This is not an oversight, or anything else, it was an intentional and calculated obfuscation of information, and there is no valid reason in the public interest as to why it was done. Obviously, what is in Solvay’s interest is obviously more important to Sandwell Planning. 

I contacted Alison Bishop- yes her again, in the email below dated 27th July 2018. Needless to say, that like all the other attempts to contact this woman, she has to be reminded several times , or does not even have the courtesy to reply at all- as was the case here. I followed this up with the listed case officer Dean Leadon- and got no response either, only to be told at a later date, that he had left the authority. His name is still listed as the case officer on the application on the council website however.

 

With little time to object, the list of documents suddenly appeared on the council website. Ignore the first two, which I will talk about later. You can see they were uploaded in bulk and the date given is 26th July 2018. This was just one day before I had emailed Bishop.

I objected to this scheme, which can be read in the PDF below.

hs040 objection

After this, I emailed again asking for updates, and received absolutely nothing from the planning department.

I put in two freedom of information requests in early 2019 to The Environment Agency , and to The HSE.

The EA replied claiming that they had had no communication with the council- astounding given that they had been involved with the investigation into the fire and other matters at this site.

The HSE replied that in one document supplied, it could take them up to 26 weeks to respond as the application was being considered by a specialist unit due to the uncertainty of the situation. This consisted of Email dated 17/8/2018 from Sandwell Council to HSE containing revised Application form and Email dated 21st August 2018 to Sandwell Council with HSE attachment  Holding Letter.

I received no further updates from Sandwell council on this matter. The HSE comments have clearly NOT been uploaded to the SMBC website, and so we get the 17 MONTH GAP between talk of pipework, the reworded application, and then it being finally passed under delegated authority nearly a year later on 2nd October 2020.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? AND OH THE IRONY OF LOCKING PEOPLE AWAY IN THEIR HOMES UNDER A “PANDEMIC” WHEN A FAR GREATER CHEMICAL RISK AWAITS ON THEIR DOORSTEP. OPEN THE WINDOWS AS WAS ADVISED BY HEALTH LIARS, AND YOU MIGHT BREATHE SOMETHING IN THAT REALLY DOES DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH FFS! 

There is too much going on out of the public eye between these SMBC planning officers and other agencies and the applicants. They appear to be pissing in the same pot, and it just will not do when it comes to compromising people’s safety and not allowing a chance to question decisions or examine the applications in a fair manner. They are covering up documents out of public view, and this is deliberate.

But it seems that another application was also put in unbeknown to me tabled HS/041 in    June 2021 . This too is a devious application which hides new chemicals being added to the list which were previously not registered as Hazardous substances on the site. I have also looked at the details of this application and the chemicals involved ON THIS PAGE. 

Something very odd appears to occur when planning applications are put in to Oldbury. I think there is a case that Sandwell council should be renamed

“The Spoon Council”. 

In fact, I think that the sculpture below would look just spiffing in Freeth Street, right outside The Oldbury Kremlin.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, this one concerns red phosphorus actually.  😛

I have looked at white phosphorus and accidents in schools in this post, when it used to be allowed in school laboratories.

There was another case of misadventure where an idiot school boy got burnt whilst clowning around with some P4 and then tried to sue the school master whom he falsely claimed to be negligent.

This post deals with a very similar incident but involves a Scottish girl, remarkably named “Burns”  😆

The time of year is also bizarre in that it was published on 4th November 1954 in the Edinburgh Evening News. It had taken Ms Burns two years to bring action against the Glaswegian council for injuries claimed to have been sustained in the classroom after a teacher had not given proper instruction of disposing of chemicals, notably red phosphorus and potassium chlorate. 

I will discuss this reaction  further on in this post, but safe to say that anyone who knows anything about chemistry will know that this reaction would cause significant exothermic activity resulting in the fire which burnt her clothes and hospitalised her.

A different story however is given in defence, arguing that this silly miss was in fact well aware of what the reaction would be in pondering “how the school could be blown up”, or words to that effect when adding chemicals into a bag.

 

The following days paper tells how her case had failed to persuade the court jury into granting her the £1000 damages she was seeking. The jury found that she had not followed the teachers instructions, having “meddled” with the chemical mixture that had burnt her- thus, she was the author of her own Burns.

It is little wonder that she suffered injury from her stupidity.

6P + 5KClO₃  → 3P₂O₅ + 5KCl

The reaction is that of striking a match.

The gritty material on the side of a match-box is coated with red phosphorus. The match-head contains potassium chlorate and some red colouring. When the match-head rubs against the box, friction ignites the mixture of phosphorus and potassium chlorate.

A couple of videos below demonstrate this reaction. Don’t try this at home or in school, yall, or even think of adding cough sweets or sugar in cetain ratios;-) ……

 

 

 

ALBRIGHT AND WILSON’S “ABSOLUTE AND UTTER SCANDAL”

 

 

Without doubt things began to unravel for this abysmal employer in the 1990’s along with their ultimate demise. The number of incidents at Trinity Street and elsewhere during this decade made them a public menace and a threat to life in all of the communities which they unfortunately had premises.

But their workers also suffered, and unlike some who appear to have been coercively brainwashed into thinking they were working for a good employer that cared about their health, there were some brave souls who chose to fight and expose their corporate and managerial negligence.

One such example comes from the  Friday 28th May 1993 Sandwell Evening Mail. I have chosen to redact the name of the employee, though if they want to get in touch with this blog, I would be very interested to talk to you, hoping that your silence was not bought. 

 

The story tells how the chemical process worker at Trinity Street lost a leg and his foot on his other was “mangled” when he got caught in the blades of machinery. The accident had occurred some 11 years previous and the man had returned to work, but he had not received any compensation from Albright and Wilson!

 

The follow up story from the mail of  29th May 1993 reveals that he had received £258,000. Unfortunately, I would wager that much of this probably never reached him and reached his legal team instead. The judge identifies that the company knew that they were liable, yet had held out paying their worker until this ruling. What an absolute bunch of evil scum they really were. Quakers my arse!

 

In 1951, Sydney Barratt, then vice chair of AW stated in the history of the company “100 years of phosphorus making”  ;

“When at the close of the second war the company could take stock of themselves and make plans it was decided to embark with energy upon the diversification and increase of their business. It was at this time that decisions were taken which added oil additives, insecticides, and certain organic chemicals to established manufactures, and were the beginning of the silicones project now in hand. The annual turnover of these new ventures already  exceeds that of the Parent Company as it was in 1930. Each of these developments had some connection with previous interests, if only a tenuous one, but each offered the Company entry into new markets.”

Barratt was as disingenuous as he was a Home Guard poser, and I have already written several posts about how the oil additives plant , the part brainchild of fellow war dodger Home guard twat Bill Albright, created the notorious “Oldbury smell”.

This was fine for those making profit, but it blighted the area. Part of the reason for the AW success came as a result of new machinery installed on the back of the war, and no thanks to the Nazi’s themselves- when AW engineer and British intelligence Ministry of Supply part timer Alf Loveless toured the captured factories on behalf of The British Government.

It should also be said that the production of insecticides mentioned here , was also a Nazi invention that AW obviously picked up the baton in wartime “victory”.

For this they have a man called  Gerhard Schrader to thank. Schrader worked for IG Farben, the home of Nazi produced chemical extermination. Anyone associated with such a place is/was evil as far as I am concerned. Whereas those in power face the consequences of show trials after the war, the perversity of the so called “allies” offered people like this fucking scum a job for life. Officially, it is claimed that he declined, but I wonder? The damage of his “work” was already enough. He should have been gassed with his own accidental invention. 

“During World War II, under the Nazi regime, teams led by Schrader discovered two more organophosphate nerve agents, and a fourth after the war:

• Tabun (1936)
• Sarin (1938)
• Soman (1944)
• Cyclosarin (1949)”

We therefore have this man to thank for chemical warfare under the guise of “insecticides”, and the continued demise and poisoning of the environment in the name of agriculture and farming. Thank him also for insidious cancer causing substances that large corporations claim falsely does not cause such illness and the way in which they buy political support and crooked civil service confederacy in policy making.

Organophosphates destroy life, they offer no legitimate use and they kill life by blocking the enzyme acetylcholinesterase which is produced to break down the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine and disrupt the proper functioning of the nerve cells. Hence, these insecticides are called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.

One of his discoveries was the first contact insecticide “Bladen” of which the main ingredient for killing insects was Hexaethyl tetraphosphate, (HETP). Also along the same lines was Tetraethyl pyrophosphate, (TEPP). Both are highly toxic to animals as well as insects. 

So it should come as little surprise that Schrader’s legend cover story of wanting to “feed the world” and instead creating substances which could destroy it for the Nazis would be used by such capitalistic scum as Albright and Wilson and their fake Quakerism.

The adverts below were taken from 1949, and directly show how by this time, they were employing people to recreate the Nazi discovery for commercial gain.

Phosphate insecticides like the ones mentioned would make AW a great deal of money by using their commercial stocks of phosphorus oxychloride and phosphorus pentoxide- both used as methods for making the chemical. It should come as no surprise that Schrader and others were interrogated about their work with TEPP and other such substances by British intelligence, to which I have very little doubt the likes of AW scientists would have been involved in advising upon.

This company profited from war and it profited from the Nazi science – but stick a “made in Oldbury ” sticker on it, and pretend it’s a British thing.- that’s the toxicity of companies like Albright and Wilson. 

 

 

It seems the berks in the Home Guard were not the only fools to dispose of P4 WMD, but whereas land was their preferred method, the regulars were at it using watery graves.

A great piece from Chemistry World raises the issue of former white phosphorus weapons that have been ludicrously dumped at sea finding their way back to land and the issues this causes when beachcombers may pick up fragments of still dangerous armaments.

It states

“In 1995 more than 4500 incendiary bombs – made of phosphorus, benzene and cellulose – washed up on beaches around Scotland’s west coast. They were part of an estimated million tons of munitions dumped between 1945 and 1976 by the Ministry of Defence in Beaufort’s Dyke, an underwater trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland. It was speculated that the munitions were disturbed by work on an undersea gas link between the two countries.”

I have found a few more incidents similar to this which reveal the British Government’s insane legacy of post war fly-tipping.

The 30th August 1968 Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald reported how a young boy had been digging near to a caravan site in Swalecliffe when the mud started to smoke.

One may speculate if the “enemy” had dropped a bomb in the area, or if this was another Gov dumping event gone wrong.

It appears that there was not much of a plan, other than to rake the area and let it burn out.

 

Just a couple of years later, the Herne Bay Press of 24th July 1970 revealed that more p4 had washed ashore “probably from a submerged wreck in The Thames Estuary”. I have no doubt that this was from the notorious SS Richard Montgomery, which the UK Government have been shitting themselves for years as to what to do with it, but I don’t think that these off floaters from the wreck , or the potential for such events have been publicised in recent times. So they continue to leave it where it lies.

 

Two Liverpool Echo reports perhaps show the waste of taxpayers money spent on supposedly training soldiers who appear to be thicker than dogshit for blowing up bombs on the beaches. This hazard was created by them and their utter incompetence which meant that fragments of the solid had scattered over a wider area putting the public at more risk than the actual bomb itself.

 

The first of 5th August 1969 concerns how the morons blew up a rocket on a Dorset beach , which would require 5 tonnes of contaminated sand to be removed. How is it possible that these “experts” were not able to identify that the device contained p4?

 

  On 6th June 1972 , we appear to get a repeat exercise taking place.

 

A couple of more recent incidents in the UK can be found in internet searches.

This article from 2015 shows just how dangerous white phosphorus is when it comes into contact with flesh. “Not a chemical weapon”- my fat hairy arse!

Newcastle man found ‘Orange stone’ on beach and it set his leg on fire | Daily Mail Online

Just last year the Navy EOD destroyed a phosphorus flare

Navy bomb squad blows up phosphorus flare found on Cornish beach – Plymouth Live (plymouthherald.co.uk)

 

And it isn’t just in the UK that Britain’s wartime legacy rears its ugly head. The Beaufort’s Dyke graveyard continues to drift unwanted munitions debris towards Irish beaches as the Hartland Evening News of 5th June 1998 showed. 

And in Germany, the legacy of the RAF firestorm still persists in tiny pockets of “amber” like rocks burning civilians.

Two Women Injured After Touching WWII Phosphorus on German Beach – DER SPIEGEL

Woman mistakes WWII white phosphorous for an amber stone | Daily Mail Online

I suppose it goes to show that “war criminals” are only those who lose wars I suppose.  😥

A warning from an Israeli case also shows the dangers of taking such artefacts home and discusses the medical implications of treating injuries.

The burning issue of white phosphorus: a case report and review of the literature – PMC (nih.gov)

So the next time you head for the coast and pick up something orange and unusual on the beach, forget Jurassic park , just don’t put it in your pocket, or you might find your behind getting very warm, and that will just be the least of your worries…..

 

I have compiled several recorded incidents of AW bomb discoveries previously, but here are a few more I have found recently which shows just what a pain they really were/still are.

The first from The Spalding Guardian of 17th August 1962 is a typical example of back garden digging going wrong. The 48 grenades that would have been in the two boxes like the one pictured above were found in what used to be a Home Guard Headquarters.

It is clear that these fucking idiots did not even bother to bury them more than a foot deep, and is another example of why this organisation was not fit for purpose.

We all know what that plate said!

Of course, the bombs never worked at all, they were useless.

Another demonstration of the incompetent Home Guard was shown in the Daily Mirror of 7th February 1966, and this time they upset the local vicar.  😛

Another cache of bombs had been buried by the uniformed clowns at their old HQ in the rectory stables. The finding is another example of new development finding the buried items. What is most interesting is the quote from one of those who buried them.

“When the war ended, we were given orders from the top to bury the bombs”. 

Oh yeah, please name names so they could get the blame , yer daft Dick. Why anyone would have thought this would be a good idea and just “followed orders” is pretty lame to say the least. I very much doubt the story.

 

The Sunday Mirror of 18th January 1970 uncovers another find in the woods, by another recurring theme in that children had found the devices whilst at play. It is not clear if they were still in a box or just loose at surface level, but it is obvious that they were also just dumped by The Home Guard of that area.

 

 

A further 9 AW bombs were found in another garden in Tunbridge Wells- yes even the posh areas saw them buried too. The Kent and Sussex Courier of 19th March 1971 tells how more garden digging  found them. I’m not sure that the local plod would have appreciated them being taken into the station.

 

The final article from the Dundee Courier of 30th April 1987 occurs around 45 years after the Albright and Wilson milkers were written off.

This tie a bakers dozen were found by more workmen, one of whose boots started to smoke. I’m not sure that the RAOC idea of blowing them up on the beach, and then telling the public to stay away from the area where the bottles were found makes any sense at all. I would have advised people to stay away from the beach where the army blew them up, as this is not the correct way to deal with such devices at all, given that all those years ago, white phosphorus AW bombs that had been disposed of similarly gave off remnants that poisoned wild animals.

You can probably see why they wanted to dump them into some type of pit, where the public would be discouraged from going, and that too had a beach area.

It’s just a question of how many of them went into a clay pit in Tividale after the war under the cover of “a waste disposal site”. 

I have looked extensively at the production, use and ultimate abandonment of these useless but highly dangerous white phosphorus filled half pint milk bottles, manufactured by Albright and Wilson on behalf of The British Government during The Second World War for an anti-tank guerrilla warfare campaign that never transpired. Over seven million of them were produced between 1940-42 at Oldbury and satellite factories , and then dispatched to Home Guard units around the country in wooden boxes of 24.

All came with clear instructions for use, and some later designs were made to be fired from a gun known as the Northover projector. Many were used for demonstrations and training, but by 1943 it was clear that they were useless for anything but gathering dust.

Many had been buried under water or in back gardens, and then as time passed by, so people forgot like absent minded squirrels as to where they had buried them.

It is widely believed that many ended up destroyed at Rattlechain lagoon before AW became a private limited company, conveniently operating the site as a Government contractor for the ministry of supply before their own waste stream went into the drink.

I have found more evidence of the problems that these dangerous and useless artefacts caused the authorities from newspaper archives, when it had obviously become clear by 1942 when their manufacture ceased that there was no use for them. The issues appear to be twofold.

1. There was no real plan as to how to destroy them and they had been stashed away, often found by children.
2. Even bigger “kids” used them in “demonstrations” for fire guard training.

The 4th November Blyth News from 1943 tells how some schoolboys had half-inched the half pint bottles from the Home Guard stores and were before the beak for doing so. It wasn’t quickly apparent that they had even been stolen, but it appears they had been dumped into the environment before they were missing. This method of secreting them under water would become a common theme in later years 😥

 

 

 

A year later from the 5th August Crew Chronicle, we see how these devices were now not being used for anything other than starting fires, rather than destroying tanks, and were becoming the play thing of the Home Guard rivals, The Fire Guard. They were aware of the properties of phosphorus and how to fight such fires, but I don’t think that AW or those who toiled on their dangerous manufacture would have believed that they would have been used in such a blasé way.

Post war, as we know, AW bombs gave the authorities considerable headaches when it was seen repeatedly that the Home Guard had abandoned their weapons before stand down. The  27 May 1950 Gloucester Citizen reported how two soldiers from The Royal Army Ordnance Corps carried AW bombs that had caught fire at an ammunition dump that appears to have been in the process of decommissioning in the Midlands area. 100 boxes of AW bombs would be 240 phosphorus filled grenades, and so there is no doubt that these “unserviceable ammunition” could have caused a serious loss of life if coming into contact with other explosive devices. It isn’t clear if they had been disturbed and the bottles broken, or if they had just corroded and auto ignited on contact with air. Either way, it is clear that storing large numbers of bombs together was a very dangerous practice in confined internal conditions. 

Though these weapons may have been haphazardly processed, it was obvious 11 years after the war had ended that AW bombs amongst other things were now a serious risk to the public The Stamford Mercury of   20th July 1956 published a letter from a Chief Constable. He was concerned as to how these “extremely dangerous” contraband weapons could fall into the hands of criminals and children. He was offering an amnesty as to their surrender , but I wonder how many of the absent minded Home Guard could even remember where they had dumped them after this time?

 

It was pretty clear that discussions must have taken place with the manufacturer of these weapons in dealing with such incidents at a centrally located dump not far from the factory where they had been made.

The millennium came and went as the Coneygre site was left abandoned by Mintworth. With the dodgy recycling venture thwarted, it would be a couple of years before another housing development scheme entered the pipeline, this time on the adjacent sports field next to Newcomen Drive.

This application by “Selbourne homes” was for “DC/02/38284 Erection of 32 detached and terraced dwellings and the construction of associated roads and sewers, land off Newcomen Drive, Tipton. ”

It is noted that this developer used a report written by Mintworth’s regular cronies SP Associates (Sladen Peters) that would later be just known as “Sladen Associates.”

The committee report for this application can be read below. It is noted that despite the previous applications associated with housing and the replacement of the sports field (ref BCS315 and  BCS851) , no application for relocation of the field was ever made, and the pitch was still being actively used.

DC_02_39284-COMMITTEE_REPORT-181843

Both existing residents at the previous new build as well as businesses on the trading estate were against the extension. Individual letters of objection and a petition were submitted to Sandwell council. The loss of the pitch, without any replacement being provided was also taken up by the quango Sport England.

A site location plan is shown below.

---

DC_02_39284-SITE_PLAN-181948

The application with 18 conditions was approved by SMBC on 16th May 2003, with some dubious proviso that a section 106 agreement would tart up the pitches at Victoria Park Tipton. I have to say that I cannot see how this money was ever spent on this location and I am highly dubious that the money totalling over £35,000 was ever transferred for this purpose, despite the section 106 agreement. I wonder where it did go?

DC_02_39284-DECISION_NOTICE-181844

DC/03/41020 Erection of 33 no. houses together with associated road and sewer works. | Land At Newcomen Drive Tipton West Midlands            

This subsequent application was for a revised layout of the above application, except that it crammed in 1 additional house to make 33 houses.

The application can be read below.

DC_03_41020-APPLICATION_FOR_PLANNING_PERMISSION-434304

The new site layout can be viewed below, and shows how it would link up to the existing roads.

DC_03_41020-SITE_LOCATION-434309

The application received some objections as before but was passed by Sandwell council who were happy to see this sports pitch disappear.

DC_03_41020-COMMITTEE_REPORT-434236

The houses were built subsequently as the Mintworth site continued to be mothballed with no activity taking place.

The extent of the Newcomen Drive estate as it still stands today is shown below, in context with the historic overlay map of where the former foundry and sports field were. It also shows the abandoned Mintworth land to the left, with its associated untreated limestone cave workings and shafts.

Some five years after this, Mintworth suddenly reappeared with another of their fanciful “remediation” schemes, this time for more housing on the site they had previously despoiled with their tipping operations. Once again, there was widespread opposition to this scheme, both from the Lindley Avenue residents and the Newcomen Drive residents, as well as the existing industrial premises on the trading estate.

DC/08/49278

Demolition of industrial units to enable vehicular access into the site, regrading of the site and stabilisation of the old mine workings, residential development of up to 300 dwellings comprising access alterations onto Coneygree Road and Burnt Tree Road and erection of a landscaped acoustic bund (outline application).

Newcomen Drive open space.

This application has a curious pedigree given that various reports submitted in its support appear to have been prepared for various parties. RPS were dealing with and claim to be acting for a “Peak Properties Limited”.

I am suspicious that this was yet another in the long line of Mintworth guises, after all residents on both estates were well aware of the activities of this waste tipping polluter, yet the leaflet proposals delivered to homes does not mention them at all, except that it had been prepared by “the owners of the site” – I wonder why? 😉

DC_08_49278-COMMITTEE_REPORT___SUPPORTING_DOCUMENTS-332773

The main points from these outline proposals were

• 300 houses.
• No vehicular access from Newcomen Drive
• Demolition of industrial units (two of which appear to have been acquired by Mintworth for this purpose)
• “regrading of the site” and infilling of mine shafts.
• Site levelled to adjoining land estates.
• Buffer of 4.5 meters against the industrial estate to screen it from new properties.

Much of this is of course shifting around the vast amounts of over tipped foundry sand that Mintworth had never cleared when surrendering their licence (SL487) and abandoning the site.

A plan of this site is shown below. It is interesting that this plan still inaccurately shows the football field that had already been built on as an extension to the Newcomen Drive estate in the previous application from 2003.

DC_08_49278-LOCATION_PLAN-318443

Submitted with the application was a report written by Sladen Associates “Ground conditions and mine stabilisation report former Coneygre foundry site.    Prepared for Mintworth Transport Limited.” The date of this is February 2007.

DC_08_49278-TECH._APP_-_APPENDIX_2_-_GROUND_CONDITION_MINE_STABILITY_REPORT_PART_1_OF_2-320028

Strangely this includes a desk study report prepared by another consultant Arup, written for “Peak Properties Limited” in 2001. The give away connection to Mintworth is that in this document it states that they are considering a residential development on the site through their solicitors Haliwell Landau. This company were acting in every sense of the word for Mintworth in all matters relating to the shambles at the adjoining rattlechain lagoon lands at this time. It is also the case that in the planning application DC/03/40538 for the 99 houses on the former sewage works (application by John Hurst Limited), that a form B is submitted with the application for the Jersey registered “Peak Properties Limited” who supposedly owned part of the land.

It is interesting that this Arup report is vague on the fill materials on the site- of course put there entirely by Mintworth and which their former director Frank Pomlett appeared to be so knowledgeable about in 1984 when proposing another application. The report is also very vague as to how the mine shafts and limestone workings would be overcome.

Indeed the most useful thing that RPS submitted with this application- for whoever they were actually acting for, is their argument that the Coneygre site was unviable for employment land end use. They appear to have gone to great lengths to emphasise this point. 

DC_08_49278-EMPLOYEE_SITE_VIABILITY_ASSESSMENT-330157

Their tally of costs for redevelopment for industrial use included

Road construction, junction costs, service provision, Canal wall and site compaction, and professional costs (eg consultants ). THIS 2008 ESTIMATE TOTALLED £9.7 MILLION.

By contrast the value put on the site for end employment use  (FOR MINTWORTH) was estimated at £4.7 MILLION.

Though RPS may have been keen to contrast these figures to suggest the land was useless for industrial use, they offer no equivalent figures for the costs and the value for residential end use.  The likelihood is that the costs associated with this use would be far greater, particularly in ensuring compliance with health and safety issues with the dire constraints such as mine shafts and ground conditions, and that is before you get to issues of potential landfill gas. IT IS ALSO WORTH POINTING OUT THAT THESE FIGURES ARE OUT OF DATE, AND SO THE COSTS WILL NOW BE FAR GREATER.

I would also like to point out that this cost and all the constraints were Mintworth’s problem and not that of anyone else. So why should it be that any outside body should pay for the issues at this site, caused in part by the failures of them to ever conduct proper remediation of a problem of which they were always fully aware of? 

 

The committee report for the application is shown below

DC_08_49278-COMMITTEE_REPORT___SUPPORTING_DOCUMENTS-332773

This proposed a tentative recommendation of the application , yet the planning committee at the council would in fact turn it down. The committee report for 30th July 2008 records “it was felt that there would be unsatisfactory highway access, the development would lead to an increase in crime and there would be inadequate accessibility to public transport. The proposal was also a departure from the Council’s Unitary Development Plan.”

Despite this, the decision was overturned by a bureaucrat from Bristol. The arguments within this are not for this post and I have no interest in debating them here. What is more crucial is the fact that despite the planning inspector overruling the council, NO PLANNING APPLICATION AND NO REMEDIATION OF THIS SITE HAS EVER TAKEN PLACE SOME 14 YEARS ON.

DC/12/54472

Renewal of extant planning permission DC/08/49278: Demolition of industrial units to enable vehicular access into the site, re-grading of the site and stabilisation of the old mine workings, residential development of up to 300 dwellings comprising access alterations onto Coneygree Road and Burnt Tree Road and erection of a landscaped acoustic bund (outline application). | Newcomen Drive Open Space Newcomen Drive Tipton

The application had not started by 2012, and so Mintworth’s favourite ruse of the time extension was used again in this renewal.

DC_12_54472-COMMITTEE_REPORT_AND_SUPPORTING_DOCUMENTS-589708

This extended time for start of works for seven years. To date nothing has happened on this site, and the area has grown derelict. Stray horses appeared on the abandoned site, prompting local residents to approach the council as reported in this Express and Star Article from January 19th 2013. 

Sandwell council later launched its ludicrous “Dudley Port Supplementary Planning Document”, thus now apparently acting as agents for this longstanding polluter of the land who had done nothing with it. The SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for this land, identified only through an FOI request, still identifies why the site is unsuitable for residential development, yet despite this, taxpayer cash is expected to pay for Mintworth’s scheme.

 

By  2019, the land registry details for this site , title number WM417427 Land to the North West of Coneygre Road indicate that it had been sold to a “Coneygre Redevelopments Limited” on 5/6/2018, who are based at an address in Hampton in Arden. The two brothers listed as the only officers of this company (incorporated on 10/4/2018), Irish nationals Patrick and Desmond  Kelly  are also directors of a “Rattlechain Redevelopments Limited” – you can probably see therefore that they also have an interest in buying another “crap site for residential” on the former Mintworth despoiled tipping ground of the former Duport’s Tip- another major problem site to rectify. We shall look at that one in a future post……

The price said to have been paid for this land was £2 million!

These two companies may be part of a bigger one, or I had my doubts at first if they may on the basis of previous history be yet another ruse and guise of Mintworth. See below!

It is noted that all previous planning permissions for this site have now lapsed, and there is no planning permission for residential development granted for this site. It is a disgrace that Sandwell taxpayers money was lost at the planning appeal for a scheme that the applicants never had ANY intention of ever starting, except perhaps unless a large tax payer handout was given for allowing them to restart by stealth, the shambolic foundry sand dumping decanting that had plagued the area in the 80’s and 90’s.  Presumably, the brothers Kelly were told of all the major issues of this site before the purchase, and that the former owners had done absolutely F. all about any remediation and restoration of the site .  😛

It is bizarre, that given the assessments in 2008, this company say the exact opposite to the Mintworth/RPS position concerning industrial use viability, and submitted a scoping plan, as well as another planning application for change of use in contravention of the SMBC land plans, and also the Black Country Core Strategy (now Black Country Plan) and the Dudley Port Supplementary Planning Document.

Compare and contrast the statement made by their agents, Elias Topping with the earlier Mintworth paid one, and there is some head scratching to do as to why two totally contrasting opinions were reached, and why the local authority were idiotic enough to even entertain the earlier one.

“It can therefore be demonstrated that housing use is not economically viable on the site and allowing the site to remain in employment use would help to meet the significant shortfall of High Quality Employment land in the borough.”

 

It is interesting to note that the only “developments” that have appeared at the site since their purchase have been some of their fellow countrymen leaving behind a few welcome gifts.  😛

Even worse than this, Sandwell council tax payers appear to be paying for a remote cctv monitoring of the entrance to this site, long abandoned by foundry sand tipping merchants, with no intent of doing anything with the land unless a public body paid for the remediation. Perhaps with the long line of failure from this local authority in the planning process of how that materialised, they should perhaps have done more to monitor that abomination instead, FFS!  😳

According to Sandwell council, there are complaints regards this site in terms of its dumping ground eyesore status.

DC_21_66125-COMMITTEE_REPORT-1195785

“7.3 The council has also dealt with two enforcement cases on the site
regarding issues with the boundary wall and untidy land (GS/13/9065
and GS/19/10965 respectively). Whilst those issues have been
addressed, a further complaint (case GS/21/11567) has recently been
received for untidy land.”

Even more bizarrely, in the Call for sites process, which I understand finished AFTER  THE “CONEYGRE REDEVELOPMENTS” purchase , the following appears, and we appear here to not be dealing with “Coneygre Redevelopments Limited” but rather someone else, in this case the agents of Mintworth- RPS  😉 It is not clear as to when this form was submitted, or IF it took place BEFORE the purchase, but it appears highly dubious. 

Black Country Core Strategy – OC2 version of form

Note that RPS claim to be the “Sole owner” of the site. WTF!?

 

 

Respondents answers in red.

 “Site ID #124

What is your / your clients interest in this site? If you are an agent please answer on behalf of your client only. Please select all that apply.

Not Provided.

Does the other owner(s) support your proposals for the site?

Yes

Is there direct vehicle access to the site i.e. from a public road?

Yes

Site

CONEYGRE

Site Address

LAND AT CONEYGRE, NEWCOMEN DRIVE, SANDWELL

Site Postcode

Not Provided.

Site Area in Hectares

9.16

Site Area in Hectares of land suitable for development, if different to above

Not Provided.

Please provide a brief summary of the current use(s) of this site or last known lawful use(s)

Historical landfill site. Designated in the Site Allocations DPD for employment uses.

Site Area: 9.16 – WILL REDUCE BELOW THIS FOLLOWING REVISED ACCESS ARRANGEMENTS AND REMOVAL OF ADJOINING LAND
Site Area suitable for development: TBC

What use or mix of uses do you propose for this site? Please tick all that apply.

Not Provided.

If housing or employment is proposed, please specify how many homes or how many hectares of employment land you think could be accommodated on the site.

TO BE ESTABLISHED BY MASTERPLANNING BUT THE POTENTIAL FOR APPROXIMATELY 8HA OF EMPLOYMEMNT LAND ON LAND CONTROLLED BY MINTWORTH TRANSPORT  😡 

What services are currently available at this site? Please tick all that apply.

Not Provided.

What constraints, if any, affect this site? Please provide details below for each constraint.

Not Provided.

Please provide supporting details for each constraint identified above.

separate technical reports are all publically (sic) available and demonstrated the suitability of development for residential purposes in 2009 and the further renewal application. 

Is the site agricultural land? If so, then what is the agricultural landclassification? Please provide survey results, including mapping.

No – the site is previously developed land.

 

If there is a current use of the site that needs to be relocated what arrangements are required to achieve this relocation? e.g. manufacturer currently on the site needs to move to a building of xx square meters with good access to the motorway.

The employment uses at the site entrance would be retained and access for new commercial Land would come direct off the existing access on Coneygre Road.

What new infrastructure do you think will be required to support the development of the site?

Not Provided.

Please provide supporting details for the above.

Following securing planning permission at appeal in 2009 for 300 dwellings and a subsequent renewal application, the landowner has marketed the site, via professional agents to numerous housebuilders. Due to the cost of addressing the prevailing ground conditions and existing mines under the site along with its market location, no housebuilder/developer has taken the site forward.
Some interest has been provided from the development sector for commercial uses on the site, which the landowner advises will not require the same extent and costs associated with securing suitable and deliverable land platforms for B Class employment land.
For this reason Mintworth Transport would welcome the opportunity of having discussions with the Local Planning Authority over the potential for an employment allocation on the land. 

Are there any existing or historic planning permissions on the site? If yes please include any details e.g. application reference number.

Yes

If yes, please provide details.

DC/08/49278

Is the land available immediately for development (subject to obtaining any necessary planning permissions)?

Don’t know

If no, please explain why not and give an estimated timescale for when it will become available.

Subject to further dialogue with commercial land developers.

Is there any current market interest in the site, other than from you / your client? Tick all that apply.

Not Provided.

Please provide further details of the market interest in this site.

Site has been marketed for several years for residential development. This has not lead to any viable proposals coming forward.

Once started how many years do you think it would take to develop the site?

Not Provided.

Do you think it is likely that there will be viability issues with developing the site that will require the use of external funding?

Possible. (lol ed)

Have you previously contacted a Black Country or neighbouring authority about this site?

Yes (ed who exactly are we talking about here?) 

If yes, please provide brief details e.g. who you contacted and when and the current position of discussions.

Not Provided.

Please provide any additional comments you may have that are relevant to the site you are putting forward.

Not Provided.”

So it looks as though no house builder is interested in this site due to the known constraints. But who exactly are the owners of this site, when “Mintworth Transport”  appear to be putting in a call for sites submission via “RPS! ? We know what “Coneygre Redevelopments” interest is in the site, given that they paid £2 million for the land, but as for Mintworth in submitting this form?

“What is your / your clients interest in this site? If you are an agent please answer on behalf of your client only. Please select all that apply.

Not Provided.”

Is there really a business case for employment land at this site, when the board on the Coneygre Industrial Estate appears to to suggest a great deal of vacancy, including the two units which Mintworth never demolished to kickstart their abandoned applications in 2008 and 2012.

 

The vagueness of many of the answers (not provided) is reminiscent of the voids in the limestone and mine workings left behind on this land. Just fill them with “any old shite will do” and leave the victims of industrial pollution with dirt in their eye thanks to sandmen pipedreams….

 

The Coneygre story and Mintworth’s involvement with the site in this second post is commenced with this letter from the Black Country Development Corporation to a Lindley Avenue resident in June 1992.

It is noted that Clive Dutton of BCDC states more in hope than in any certainty that Mintworth had by now been given planning permission at the Duport’s Tip/Sewage works site to import the grossly over tipped piles at Coneygre- reference BCS 1813. Of course, this belies the fact that in playing off these residents with this statement, the export of the foundry sand pile at Coneygre would knowingly lead to the pain of those living in streets on the Temple Way estate who had to suffer the misery” imports next to their homes from this.

 

After some hiatus of activities at the Coneygre site where they appeared to have abandoned it, a sudden planning application on their remaining undeveloped land- (the one with the huge mound built on top of the limestone unremediated limestone workings) was submitted to the horror of local residents. This was BCS 3553 PROPOSED RECYCLING & WASTE TRANSFER STATION OFF CONEYGREE ROAD TIPTON.

BCS3553-BCS3553-70391

SMBC’s building regulations officer notes the “numerous problems” associated with this site. It states that the OVE ARUP report found that the abandoned limestone mine directly beneath the site was in a different position to historic plans, as are the risks of collapse. Landfill gas was also identified on the site. The author identifies numerous issues that would be required to even contemplate any end use.

News of these plans went down like a lead balloon on the Lindley Avenue estate, as well as the new one at Newcomen Drive that were separated by the abandoned Mintworth heaps on top of abandoned old holes. They suspected “sneak tactics” at getting the plans through on the part of BCDC, which were quite justified as it turns out following their clandestine meetings with Mintworth and their agents as a “steering group” at the Duport’s tip/sewage works sites which never involved any local residents.

 

A campaign by local residents was mobilised, even before the BCDC had garnered what it was Mintworth were supposedly going to be importing onto the site. A letter from Keith Brooke to Mintworth’s solicitors asked some probing questions as well as taking into account the guidance issued by the building consultant.

It is perhaps quite telling that there was no response to these points for over five months. When it came, the response was vague and uncertain. You can see this in that it repeats the questions that Brooke asks to pad out the letter! It is noted that it had “taken some time to ascertain the information requested”.

• 2000 tonnes per day of soils, concrete, brick, demolition materials, foundry sand stone, metals, wood, paper, cardboard, plastic and glass. (Of course it should be noted that this matches the description of wastes buried in the Duport’s tip- so was it their plan to simply keep decanting stuff from site to site in the hope that the BCDC and all others were really that bloody stupid?)
• No specification of plant to be used
• 6 meter stockpiles allegedly screened from local residents by bunds. (these bunds of course were the very problem the residents were complaining about in that it was allowing trespassers to look into their homes.)
• the bizarre statement that the water coming off the described materials would not be contaminated! (how would these types of waste NOT be contaminated with heavy and phytotoxic metals etc?)
• Garbage about security fencing, when throughout their time on site evidence of no security at all was evidenced.
• Talk of bringing materials in by the adjacent railway line- (right next to Lindley Avenue), though no scheme at this time was proposed.
• Absolutely no intention of submitting any plans to deal with the current issue of the limestone workings, but this would be submitted “later”.
• This letter appears to have been written by an amateur.

Local businesses as well as Centro and railtrack were not in favour of this scheme.

A petition and letters of objection scheme was started by the residents. A spirited campaign was also put together in the form of  “stop the waste transfer station”. It is notable that one of the campaign spokespeople wrote a letter to a Councillor Turner on behalf of over 1000 people, yet they had not bothered to respond.

The following is the summary of this campaign and attachments, which in themselves shed much light on Mintworth and their operations at this site, as well as what residents had expected when they bought homes on the former Coneygre foundry site- certainly not a waste tip in all but name!

“There is a significant and extensive opposition to this proposal from local people. Over 500 letters have been sent either to Sandwell MBC of the BCDC to register grievances. In addition, petitions containing in excess of 800 signatures have been collected and forwarded to the decision makers. Support for the campaign has been received from the Governing bodies of local schools, health care professionals, businesses, and people active in local politics. Three articles have appeared in the local press outlining the extent and strength of opposition in the local community. “

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the comments made in the newspaper articles in relation to this campaign by elected representatives are laughable. A Councillor Geddes is quoted as saying “but it is not the contractors that I blame. They are forced to dump this waste because there is no where else to take it.”

WHAT ABSOLUTE BOLLOCKS! Mintworth were not “forced” to dump this waste, they did it as their polluting business, creating nothing but “misery” at these two sites. Why should their activities supplant the quality of life for local residents? The comment by the SMBC representative is also telling in that there would be “room for the waste at rattlechain” and that activities would be “more closely monitored in future.” There was a fucking waste management licence at this site just like that at their other site that they were regularly breaching- where were the regulators and why did they not enforce the law and these licence conditions? Of course the problems only stopped when Mintworth abandoned the site without complying with any remediation of the waste mound they had left behind on top of an abandoned limestone mine!

The following letter from a local resident notes the vague responses to the detail that their application did not submit.

 

The following letter from Keith Brooke to Roger Lancaster of Mintworth’s solicitors notes that the BCDC role as planning regulators would be coming to an end at the stroke of midnight on 24th March 1998. He did not wish to leave the application left over for Sandwell council, and so it would be marked as “undetermined.”

It is worth once again pointing out the utter failures of this quango in how they had given so much to Mintworth and got so little but dithering, procrastination and outright taking the piss throughout the ten years that they had been around. The legacy of the BCDC was to leave behind two enormous mounds of foundry sand on two sites, that blighted the lives of residents living there. The recycling venture was nothing more than a con job to restart the whole process. Thank God it failed!