I asked a question at the Executive Council meeting (all LibDem councillors). Mark Hunter, then Council Leader and John Schulz, Chief Executive, said I had been so rude to a council officer that I may never contact another Stockport Council employee ever again. There was no appeals process and no time limit to this ban.
“Goodness, Sheila, what have you done”, asked excellent Stockport Express reporter Peter Devine. “I have been asking questions about the school”, I replied, “and they don’t like it”.
When I threatened to sue them for defamation – this was said at a public meeting – they backed down completely and had to find another way to shut me up.
Local people knew its history and demanded the council arranged a contamination investigation. They did one borehole, which would laughable if it wasn’t potentially so tragic.
The then LibDem run Stockport Council knew this site they had chosen for a new school was seriously contaminated. It didn’t stop them pretending it wasn’t.
Three planning applications were refused in the past due to the toxic nature of the site.
The Stockport Council assistant monitoring officer Michelle
Dodds and Vicki Bates, Strategic Head of Service
& Monitoring Officer (Legal, Democratic Governance and
Estate and Asset Management), say I am vexatious to have ever raised this
issue. Ms Dodds and Ms Bates obviously
care nothing for children’s safety.
The Stockport then-entirely LibDem Executive decided
to build the new 500 pupil, still gassing toxic waste dump school at this
location where traffic was already horrendous:
Most of the cars from the houses within the red lines on the photo below, which have to exit their housing estate along narrow Mill Lane past the new, still gassing toxic waste dump primary school, were ignored at the planning meeting. What about the traffic from all these houses I asked and asked? Don’t be vexatious they replied, and they still do – Ms Dodds and Ms Bates, Stockport Council panjandrums.
Within weeks of the new school opening the police had complained about the dangerous traffic situation, which I had previously warned the Council about:
The school was issuing
letters to parents and residents about the dangerous traffic situation, but
still my questions on the subject were and still are “vexatious”.
It would be bad enough that Ms Dodds and Ms
Bates, Monitoring Officers, don’t care about children’s safety enough to allow
questions to be asked about the traffic situation, but my young son died in a
traffic accident aged just 16. For these
women to call a mother who lost her child in a traffic accident “vexatious” for
correctly identifying the dangers to primary school children is so offensive to
me as to be off the scale.
Vicki Bates, Strategic Head of Service & Monitoring Officer(Legal, Democratic Governance and Estate and Asset Management) at Stockport Council claims all questions regarding contamination on the site of a new primary school at Stockport are vexatious. I think she is dangerously wrong.
There was a Jackson’s brickyards site in North Reddish. These sites are notorious for their contamination. When they stopped making bricks they filled the dug-out claypits with rubbish at a time when no records were kept of what was dumped. In 1974 new regulations were brought in and this site was no longer viable as a tip. The land was grassed over and left. In 1974 three planning applications were lodged to build housing on the site, but Stockport Council refused these as the land was too dangerous to build on.
Stockport Council, at that time a
completely LibDem run council, decided to build a new primary school on the
site. Local people objected saying the
site was tipped land and contaminated.
The council was forced by public
opinion to do contamination investigations. What they did was a very paltry one
borehole, which they thought they could get away with.
An excellent contaminated land officer at Stockport Council
called Alison Bardsley wouldn’t accept this report, to her credit, and insisted
further contamination investigations were carried out.
The further contamination report was seriously flawed. It found contamination which the council
intended to deal with by planting prickly bushes on to keep the children away
from it. The plants would have soaked up the contaminants and lost their
prickly leaves. No solution whatsoever.
The council’s own contamination report for a sister Jackson’s
Brickyards site at Adswood Tip, where they wanted to prevent development,
stated that a site shouldn’t be developed if it were gassing more than 0.5% v/v
Carbon Dioxide.
The proposed new primary school was gassing 14.7% v/v Carbon
Dioxide.
No investigations were done where the school was actually
going, which was directly over the old rubbish-filled claypits marked ///////
on the map below, just around the periphery.
The CBR investigations (California Bearing Ration) are to do with ground
stability and nothing to do with contamination
Under BS 10775 they should have done contamination
investigations on a strict grid pattern but they didn’t disturb the football
pitch, which covers a lot of the site where the school was built.
They found toxic hotspots on the site, so they should have
considered the entire site to be contaminated and should not have made the
decision not to disturb the football pitch, which was exactly where the new
primary school was going.
BS
10175, which the Council and Greater Manchester Geological Unit (part funded by
Stockport Council) claim to have complied with, states the contamination
investigations should be carried out on a strict grid pattern. This was not
done and GMGU admitted that they didn’t bother to investigate under the
football pitch, which is where the school was going. “You have not
complied with BS10175”, I objected. “Don’t be vexatious”, they
replied. Weldon, Goddard, Schulz, Sager, Khan, Pantall, Smith, Candler, Khan,
Derbyshire, Bodsworth et al.
I was pointing out at the time in council meetings and with
FOIA questions that what they were proposing was unsafe for children. Their
response – the entirely LibDem council executive – was that I was being
“vexatious” for raising these issues and publicly defamed in council meetings
and on the Internet as being vexatious and causing council officers and
councillors work. I have in writing from
a previous council Chief Executive that I have never been rude or offensive.
I went to see the Environment Agency in Warrington with all
my documentary evidence and fortunately
they took me seriously. However, when
Stockport Council was told how to act by the Environment Agency, they simply
ignored it.
A councillor, who was a chartered chemist, wrote to the local
paper claiming the site was clear enough,
and he denigrated my efforts to get the contamination properly dealt
with.
I kept asking and asking whether the actions demanded by the
Environment Agency had actually been carried out and the response from the
LibDem executive at council meetings and the response to FOIA/EIR 2004
questions was that I was vexatious and they refused to respond.
Local people claimed four footpaths across the site. The Council applied to have those diverted in
order to build the school. I objected as
I felt the footpaths might be being diverted into areas of contamination, so
for the resulting public inquiry and for that inquiry only further
contamination investigations were carried in November 2009 which found that the
site was entirely contaminated with lead, arsenic and brown asbestos.
The words of an amazing gentleman who was assisting me in this
fight:
“It is inconceivable that the school
would actually be built following “failure to detect toxics”
– the tests were obviously unreliable especially having failed and caused
the reckless plans to go ahead. By then the financial aspects of this new
project were too great to resist, especially backed by the extraordinary claim
by the Council that the old industrial tip site could be made safe and used.
The Council had commissioned soil tests and found no contamination! There was
the influence of the Government grant of £2.2 million already in the till and
even spent on something else. But more soil tests, only carried out
because the Council had to prove to a diversion of footpath public inquiry that
the site was not contaminated found a variety of chemicals – lead, arsenic
and brown asbestos. What on earth were the previous experts – Greater
Manchester Geological Unit – doing to have missed all this or should
the question be who was in the pocket of whom?”
Contractors
then sifted the deadly material by hand – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0rCPnP5H9o
Come on! How could they recognise the material, especially when the
experts couldn’t?
Drainage Because
the school was on a toxic site, over an important aquifer, draining into a
fishing pond the Environment Agency stipulated £200k should be spent on drainage. What is left of the site for public use is
often sodden and unusable. How much was
actually spent on drainage? “Vexatious”
of me to ask.
