[1][2][3] The developer subsequently submitted a planning application to Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council in December 2004 to build an "urban village" consisting of 650 homes, a children's daycare centre and a business park on the site.
[3] Site clearance work had begun as early as May 2004, prior to the submission of the application, including tree felling and soil disturbance, and some waste had been removed on flatbed trailers and open trucks.
[3] A campaign group, Save Spodden Valley, was formed to oppose the development, claiming disturbance of the site in a contaminated state posed too great a risk to public health.
[5] Greater Manchester Association of Trade Unions Councils said: "The planners must do their public duty and deem the site permanently unsafe for urban development and formulate a plan to seal all possible sources of asbestos dust as an urgent priority.
Rochdale parliamentary candidate Simon Danczuk warned that the council believe a housing development on the site is an inevitability and iterated that they are "sleepwalking into a catastrophic mistake.
Clearly revealed was the sharp glass-like jagged nature of the particles, and where they are allowed to rise and to remain suspended in the air of the room in any quantity, the effects have been found to be injurious as might have been expected.
"[14][15] In 1924 a 33-year-old Turner's employee, Nellie Kershaw, became the first officially recognised victim of asbestosis but the firm refused to accept responsibility for her death, saying it would "create a precedent".
If we can produce evidence from this country that the industry is not responsible for any asbestosis claims, we may be able to avoid tiresome regulations and the introduction of dangerous occupational talk.
In the 1950s people living near the factory joked that the area had frost all year round and the local woods were nicknamed "the snow trees" due to the permanent dusting with asbestos particles.
MMC director Mark Russell stated that the plans were in 'everyone's interests' and would be carried out without harming the environment or causing problems with old asbestos: "At the end of the day this is a contaminated site with lots of old, ugly, dilapidated buildings on and it needs something doing with it.
[31] In April 2005, following the confirmation of asbestos fibres found on tree roots, the council asked developers to provide more detailed information relating to their contaminated land surveys, and placed the application on hold.
"[33] In May 2005 the Save Spodden Valley group claimed that it had uncovered internal MMC correspondence which identified numerous sites where asbestos fibres had been found in September 2004, predating the planning application.
"[34] HSE tests on building rubble carried out on the site in March 2005 were revealed in July 2005, and demonstrated the presence of significant contamination.
[35] Paul Rowen MP, the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Rochdale, raised the issue and the results in a House of Commons debate on 28 June 2005.
Yet in his planning submission, the developer stated: "Of particular note is the absence of any asbestos contamination"; and in a meeting with local councillors earlier this year, he and his expert witness said that the tests on the rubble had all been negative.
"[36] In August 2005 a second report commissioned by the developers, from Encia Environmental, revealed levels of asbestos fibres in two soil samples from the site at 1.3% and 2.3%, 13 and 23 times above the limit at which waste is deemed "hazardous".
"[39] A brochure produced by MMC and Countryside Properties, entitled Regeneration of Spodden Valley Community News Autumn 2005, and distributed to 50,000 households in the area, was determined by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to have breached a code of honesty and truthfulness, and was misleading when it claimed: The ASA advised MMC to "take greater care when producing marketing communications in future", and "to ensure that they held full substantation before making similar claims.
"[40] The report commissioned from Atkins Global by Rochdale council, at a cost of £80,000, was published in July 2006 and claimed that previous tests on the land, carried out on behalf of the developers, were not thorough enough, and that extensive work would be required before councillors should even consider the controversial planning application.
If we were to cave in to Jason Addy's uninformed scaremongering and let him have his way, which we most certainly won't, the site would remain a contaminated eyesore on the face of Rochdale in eternity, and all the surrounding houses and properties will be devalued by his badly thought out obsession.
The case against the council cited: "The Defendant's urban land reclamation programme and the presence of poisonous waste presented a significant risk to health.
While recognising that there was insufficient epidemiological data to establish whether the victims' injuries arose from a "common cause", or from airborne contamination or from the reclamation works, the judge ruled that there was a "statistically significant cluster" of birth defects in Corby which needed "explanation other than chance": it was not the court's purpose to establish whether the victims were individually exposed to contaminants from the reclamation, rather to determine whether any relevant breach of duty had the ability to cause injuries of the type complained of.
[46] Stephen Matthew, a partner in the project group at corporate law firm Nabarro, advises: "Councils and regeneration bodies still need to be very open and clear about how they intend to deal with material on brownfield sites.
There is now a clear legal principle that local authorities hold a duty of care to protect communities from the hazardous effects of disturbing contaminated land.
Since at least the 1960s there has been clear evidence that the inhalation of asbestos fibres, even in low quantities, can cause terminal cancer decades after initial exposure.
These facts are not in dispute and though the owner of the site is the responsible duty holder, the court judgment on Corby Council confirms the duty of care of a council as the planning authority and environmental health authority in terms of managing and controlling the risks to long term health presented by the airborne asbestos fibres from this site.