Stockport Council News

We have seen the location of the old tip and the location of the school are one and the same. We have seen previously that no contamination trial pits were dug where the school was going (deliberately so no contamination would be found).

We now see that the gas boreholes have been sunk around the periphery of the old tip and not in a strict grid pattern as should have been the case if they had complied with BS 10175.

These documents can be more clearly viewed at – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/contamination.html

Boreholes 1/05, 2/05, 3/05, 4/05 (no well – I don’t know what that means and apparently it is vexatious of me to have asked),5/05, 6/05, 7/05, 8/05, 9/05 and 10/05 testing for gas.

All contamination trial pits dug nowhere near where the school was going. “Existing borehole” is the one totally inadequate contamination investigation they tried to get away with and trial pit 5/05 wasn’t even dug because they didn’t own the land.

The ///////// areas marked on this old map are where the old tip was. Slap, bang underneath the new 550 pupil and 78 babies nursery. In the late 1800s a brickyard was on the site with a brick kiln. Claypits were dug out to obtain clay for the bricks. Brickmaking was continued up until the 1950s and then the clay pits were filled in with rubbish. There was no record kept at that time of what was tipped as tipping wasn’t regulated. Some of the contamination found in the paltry four contamination pits they actually bothered to dig at the far end of the site to where the school was going showed Benzopyrene, which is a carcinogenic substance probably from the old brick kilns.

These documents can be more clearly read at – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/contamination.html

The matter was even mentioned in Parliament by the excellent local MP, Andrew Gwynne. No-one at the Council can claim ignorance of the facts.

This document can be more clearly read at – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/contamination.html

All the contamination trial pits were dug at the bottom of this site – the school was going at the top. Why not dig any contamination pits where the school was going? Because they would have found contamination.

Trial pits 0/05, 2/05, 3/05 and 4/05

This document can be more clearly read here – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/contamination.html

The contamination ‘experts’ (Council funded Greater Manchester Geological Unit) dug 4 trial pits at the opposite end of the site where the school was to be going. 50% of these paltry 4 trial pits showed they were contamination hotspots.

It was decided to protect children at the school from these contamination hotspots by means of “prickly bushes”. Our Friends of the Earth expert pointed out this was an unsuitable way of dealing with contamination. The plants would take up the contaminants, lose their leaves and die. and be no protection for the children. Don’t be “vexatious” the LibDems said – and they still do.

Trial Pit 01/05, TP02/05, TP03/05 and TP04/05

These documents may be easier to read here – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/contamination.html

The document above is from 20th September 1974 and states the site had been intensively tipped for the previous 20 years, so going back to the 1950s. During this time there was no control over what was dumped.

This document below is refusal of planning permission – J89 – “The land is tipped and unsuitable for building.”

Local MP calls primary school site a toxic minefield and local residents, who had lived next to the toxic dump for decades and knew what had gone on there, agreed.

LibDem run Stockport Council declared it safe as a site for the new 550 pupil primary school and 78 babies nursery, and tried to do no contamination investigations. After local people objected the arranged for one borehole to be dug on the site.

Rachel Roswell, Strategic Accounts Children’s and Young People’s Directorate, is happy with Section 11 of the PEP Cost Control. Should she have been?

This document can be more clearly read at – http://www.sheilaoliver.org/financial-irregularities.html