The toxic waste dump school again, that nobody except the Council led by the LibDems wanted. What on earth has been going on here?
In October 2005 the cost of the proposed school, which nobody wanted, was put at £5.5million. It would also provide all manner of community services.
The site had not been cleared at this stage, not that it ever properly was cleared.
He is obviously a rubbish chemist then.
When the evidence spewed out on just how contaminated the school site was I asked him to apologise to me and admit that he had been wrong. Did he? Did he Buxton!
The Dodgy Stockport LibDems finally were forced kicking and screaming to remove the contamination from the new primary school site. However, foreign labour was used. I doubt they knew what they were actually involved in. One contamination worker actually removes his respirator and a builder walked past completely unprotected.
They used the tried and tested bin bag and stick method to find and pick up lethal blue asbestos fibres.
I told the Dodgy LibDem Executive Councillors at the time that this was woefully inadequate for such a lethal site. “Don’t be vexatious and a nuisance,” they said, and they still do.
I objected as I didn’t know whether the footpaths would be diverted into areas of contamination. For the public inquiry to look into this, and for the public inquiry only and not for the safety of the children, they finally did the contamination investigations demanded by the Environment Agency.
The entire site was contaminated with lead, arsenic and blue asbestos.
“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?
Contracters then sifted the deadly material by hand –
Come on! How could they recognise the material, especially when the experts couldn’t?
The excellent local MP Andrew Gwynne said they were spending money to save face because the site had to be used.
Councillor Mark Weldon stated the Council had “no responsible alternative”. Well I never! Responsible to whom? Certainly not the council taxpayers.
Follow the money”!
I kept asking whether the further contamination investigations demanded by the Environment Agency had been carried out. Stop being “vexatious” they bellowed, in the press, in council meetings and by post – but, no, they didn’t bother to do any further contamination investigations.
