12th January

Dear Anybody,

Please help us.  The cement works at Westbury, Wiltshire have been given permission to burn waste tyres and now inform us that they are going to open another kiln to burn even more tyres soon.

The department of health has failed to provide the numbers of children who suffer from asthma and chest infections, so have the doctors at our local
surgery.  I think that over the past ten years there has been a high number of miscarriages, stillbirths cot-deaths and a death from a rare facial tumour that affects only 7 children in the whole country per year. Most have been concentrated in a small area known as the Bitham Brook Estate in Westbury.

Our local man,  David Levy tells us in the local paper that the number of child cancers around the plant at Rugby has shown a huge increase.  I am scared for my 2 children.

None of the managers at Blue Circle seem to live around here and all they can say that they  are providing jobs for  local people but would they rather be unemployed than harm their children.  I think that they would.

A Housewife.

We are a small charity that is setting up to help and advise children, their parents and communities on environmental issues.  Currently we working exclusivly in Wales and our major campaign at the moment is supporting parents and the wider communities in Llandudno and Newport as both councils intend to sell off prime school sites and re-build the schools on toxic landfill sites.

At present we have just reqested the National Assembly for Wales to revoke the planning consents granted for these schemes.  Neither community was in any position to challenge the outline consent for these schemes as both councils breached Environmental Information regulations 1992 and withheld information and generally continued to push such misleading information out to the public.

It was only several months after planning consent had been granted that we managed to drag the evidence out of councils which would substantiate our claims that no risk assessments were done prior to planning consent being granted; that there is no scientific base to the assumptions in the reports that include for example acceptance of industrial usage standards for remediation.

The cheapest way of cleaning up the sites and the remediation intended is based on ignoring that children will be on sites which, after all, are going to be schools - a major oversight one might suggest.

The basis of revoking planning consents is tha the original decision is so gross as to not be in the public interest.  One point we have argued continually is that there must be a public interest issue in exposing chidlren to high levels of lead, present in both sites.  After all we have legislation which prevents the use of lead in petrol.

If anyone could write, e-mail Sue Essex the Environment Minister at the National Assembly for Wales, or even better the civil servant dealing with the
issue to Sue.Essex@wales.gsi.gov.uk or the civil servant, DavidJ.Miles@Wales.gsi.gov.uk.
If you could suggest that the National Assembly for Wales agreeing to provide 70% of the money to such schemes without requiring any kind of Environmental Impact Assessment or consultation with the communities concerned and failing to oversee the procedure of these councils, as unitary authorities they are the Benificial Land Owners, the Developers, the Environmental Health authorities and the Planning Authorities, is not only outrageous but suggest that the National Assembly for Wales appears to be making no difference what so ever.

After all this is exactly what happened with the Nantygwython tip.  Also of course that building shcools on waste tips remediated to industrial usage standards, except for small pockets of  elevated levels of heavy metals and hydrocarbons which may well remain in the soil as only average levels will be dealt with but unregulated old tip will not have a uniformly spread of toxins and so the average is pretty irrelevant.

It is all extremely gross and certainly not in anyone's interest - the general public's and certainly not the 2,500 chidlren it is intended will go to these schools next year.

Please write  if any can
Regards Lesley McCarthy