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'600 HOME PLANNING APPLICATION'
16th December 2004
A huge planning application has just been lodged at Rochdale Town Hall concerning
a controversial site in the Spodden Valley, once home to the world’s largest asbestos
textile factory.
It is rumoured that up to 600 homes are being considered in the application.
The former Turner & Newall (T&N) site has hit the headlines several times this year:
On a Saturday morning this May, the site’s new owners cleared hundreds of trees.
Within days, a Tree Preservation Order was made to protect the remaining woodland.
The woodland clearance uncovered a capped coal mine. Former Turner & Newall
asbestos factory workers have described how industrial waste was dumped down
the flooded shaft for decades.
It was recently confirmed that large quantities of brown asbestos fibres are hanging
from tree roots on the troubled site.
A T&N document from 1957 describes 15,000 lbs of asbestos dust a week being
dumped at the Rochdale factory. The site processed asbestos for over 100 years.
Mr Chowdry, a former T&N Health and Safety manager, now a National HSE
Commissioner,has branded the destruction of the site’s woodland as
“sheer madness”. He further commented at a public meeting:
“the trees were probably planted for a reason by T&N… Nobody thought this land
would ever be built on”
Richard Morgan, a Derbyshire based asbestos health and safety expert from the
GMB Union has also expressed his concerns in very strong terms:
“The fact that Turner Brothers operated in the area for so long may have lulled
some people into a false sense of security. Those of us from the rest of the
country do not take the issue so lightly.”
”The use of the Spodden Valley as a housing development is similar to that of
seeking to open up a plague pit or develop the reactor site a Chernobyl. Alarmist it
may be said, but I am someone who has been in the industry and seen the
devastating effects of mesothelioma and the slow agonizing deaths of asbestos
disease victims”.
Leader of Rochdale Council, Paul Rowen has demanded that “every square inch”
of the site should be investigated.
Rochdale MP Lorna Fitzsimons has met with the Council’s Chief Executive
discuss environmental concerns. Rochdale’s Director of Public Health is also
being consulted.
It is understood that the size of the planning application is so large it will take
Rochdale Council Officers days to organize the paperwork before it is made public.
Members of local groups will be meeting with Councillors next week to scrutinize
the plans.
Jason Addy from Save Spodden Valley comments:
“The thought of 600 homes on that site beggar’s belief.
Given the potential scale of asbestos contamination involved, this could be the most
controversial brownfield planning application this Town will ever see.
Scientific reports have shown that asbestos fibres, once airborne, can travel for miles.
Asbestos can cause mesothelioma, an incurable cancer that develops decades after
inhaling the microscopic fibres.
IRRESPONSIBLE re-development of the Spodden Valley site could cost lives.
Disturbing soil on parts of that site could have health consequences for decades
to come.
Public health must be paramount- one further cancer death caused by asbestos from
that site would be one too many.
Let’s have safe, open and accountable decisions”.
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STATEMENT ENDS.
