Local residents and incinerator protesters today accused the Health and Safety Executive and Environment Agency of putting public health at risk after yet another explosion and fire broke out at the Byker Incinerator this Saturday morning at 11am.

Local resident Bill Tynan, 75, said “There was an explosion and then the red stack went off like a rocket.  I hurried down to the incinerator and saw workers running around the site.  There was absolute pandemonium. Balls of fire and plumes of thick brown smoke were billowing from the chimney.  Grass outside the incinerator had also been set alight.”

Millie Blenkinsop, of the Oval, Walker, added:  “I was walking my dog when I suddenly noticed gigantic flames leaping out of the incinerator chimney and a column of thick, acrid, curdling smoke billowing out.  It was horrendous.  I have never seen anything like it before.  It was like a nightmare - I thought the whole place was going up.”

Val Barton from the Campaign Against the Incineration of Refuse said: “There are demolition workers from O’Briens working for SITA inside the plant. We believe they caused the explosion and fire.  I wrote to the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency last month calling for them to halt renovation work on the plant until they had carried out a full safety assessment for dioxins. We feared that the welding and cutting gear could cause a fire  releasing even more dioxins. It now appears that this is what has happened. Locals have lost faith in the regulatory bodies and are growing impatient. If the HSE or the Environment Agency won’t shut the plant down now, we believe local residents will. People are not prepared to put up with this cancer factory on their doorsteps any longer.”

For more information, contact:

Val Barton, CAIR: 0191 265 5241
Bill Tynan: 0191 265 8925
Millie Blenkinsop: 0191 265 4459