Councillors Joining the March

11 Responses

  1. Jeremy Maynard says:

    Any Davyhulme councillors yet?

  2. Helen Simpson says:

    I am labour candidate for Davyhulme East, and I will be attending. Helen Simpson

  3. Jeremy Maynard says:

    That’s great Helen. No news from the Davyhulme West councillors yet. Just an obvservation.

  4. Michael Ryan says:

    I wonder if many people in the area that will be affected by emissions from the biomass plant recall press articles in 1999 about harm to health in Kings Lynn?

    On 3 September 1999, articles were in The Guardian, The Sun, and the Daily Mail with respective headlines:

    “Poison fear keeps pupils at home: Parents boycott school over chemical emissions from factories as council promises new research”

    “Scare kids snub class”

    “POLLUTED SCHOOL IS BOYCOTTED”

    Ramona Crofts was one of the “local heros” in Kings Lynn, and is named in this article of 2 September 1999:

    http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/daily-mail-london-england-the/mi_8002/is_1999_August_27/village-odf-damned-breast-cancer/ai_n36098104/?tag=content;col1

    On 5 December 1999, the News of the World printed the following piece which has this key sentence that Peel will be relying on and that the Environment Agency and your Primary Care Trusts will not want widely read:

    “Public health experts assured parents the tiny particles were NOT to blame for the health problems.”

    Scandal school U-turn – NOW campaign
    News of the World (London, England) – Sunday, December 5, 1999
    Author: Ricky Sutton
    THE government has been forced to ban a cancer-causing chemical-after a News of the World investigation revealed a primary school saturated in the stuff.

    For years parents at St Edmund’s in King ‘s Lynn , Norfolk, complained about toxic fumes belching from plants circling their kids’ classrooms.

    Fears were fired by a cluster of tumours, birth defects and asthma cases. It became known as The School Of The Damned.

    We took up their case in August and discovered levels of cancer-linked phthalate chemicals in the playground and bike shed were 1,500 times normal levels.

    Public health experts assured parents the tiny particles were NOT to blame for the health problems.

    And although the rest of Europe had banned phthalates-used to make plastics flexible-Britain held back saying there was no conclusive proof.

    But on Wednesday, following our campaign and new medical evidence that the chemicals pose a “serious and immediate danger”-causing kidney and liver damage as well as cancer-the government signed an emergency treaty outlawing their use.

    Mum Ramona Crofts, 32, who moved her three children out of St Edmunds after being forced to abort two pregnancies because of deformities, declared: “It’s about time the powers that be admitted the danger. We were right all along.”

    Parents are now considering legal action against the education authority for allegedly failing to ensure their children’s welfare.
    *****************************************

  5. Jayne Dillon says:

    That is disgusting Michael, but does not surprise me at all. We will stop this incinerator by whatever means we have to. We will be going to Downing Street, and will not give up. Those parents should most certainly take legal action. I don’t suppose you know the whereabouts of Ramona Croft now do you Michael?

  6. Michael Ryan says:

    Last I heard was that she was working in Kings Lynn.

    Norfolk County Council want incinerator in Kings Lynn to be operated by Cory Wheelabrator:

    http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=56914&section=local_authority

    Cory and Wheelabrator to exhibit Norfolk EfW plans
    letsrecycle.com – Chris Sloley – ?Dec 15, 2010?
    The consortium seeking to develop a 268000 tonnes-a-year capacity energy-from-waste incinerator to deliver a PFI contract for the treatme…

    Here’s news item that is worth keeping eye on as a civil action has been started in US by two employees of Wheelabator who will, no doubt, have inside knowledge of “wrongdoing”.

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/01/04/ag_investigating_waste_incinerator/

    Here in UK, an Environment Agency whistleblower didn’t get much support from his bosses, but you’ll need to get free access to Ends report to read more:

    Environmental regulators assaulted and threatened at home
    …ago. The officer involved, Ian Hymes, regulated industrial premises in and around north Wales, including several high-profile sites. Mr Hymes declined to be interviewed, but the events at his home…
    ENDS Report 338 – 1 March 2003

    A disturbing tale from the clinical waste front
    …pressureA further chapter in the Eurocare story began in September 2000, when Ian Hymes, the IPC inspector, but the following month Mr Hymes led an unannounced monitoring visit to the site in response to information from a…
    ENDS Report 337 – Feature – 1 February 2003

    I’ve spoken to Marek Mayer a few times about the above issue and also about a strange Employment Tribunal case in Manchester involving an employee of the Enviroment Agency. If you get the short-term free access to Ends Report, look at more about this lady:

    Tribunal’s sorry tale about waste regulators and the Environment Agency
    …airing before an employment tribunal. The proceedings were brought against the Agency by Carol Donnelly professing to value its employees. Industry experienceOn the face of it, Carol Donnelly and Alex Tovey, both…
    ENDS Report 300 – Feature – 1 January 2000

    If Marek Mayer were still alive, and also still owner of Ends Report, I’m sure that the Davyhulme biomass issue would be making the Environment Agency sweat when each issue hit their desks.

  7. Michael Ryan says:

    Marek Mayer was from Manchester area and this part of is obituary is worth remembering in difficult times:

    “His persistence, penetration and refusal to be fobbed off with spin or platitudes, coupled with objectiveness, good writing and a pleasing lack of arrogance, served as a beacon to a generation of environmental journalists.”

    No wonder the Environment Agency were terrified of him and made a complaint about Ends to the Press Complaints Commission alleging that he painted the Environment Agency in a poor light. The Press Complaints Commission knocked the EA back by saying Ends Report was a “Trade Journal” and not a newspaper and was therefore outside PCC’s remit.

    Alan Dalton, former EA Regional Board Member for North East England, told me that the top management were terrified of what would appear in Ends that they’d prefer to remain hidden.

    Marek Mayer – Obituary
    Times, The (London, England) – Friday, August 12, 2005
    Marek Mayer , environmental journalist, was born on August 6, 1952. He died on July 23, 2005, aged 52.

    Indefatigable environmental journalist to whom business people and civil servants turned for his authoritative objectivity.

    MAREK MAYER had a profound influence on environmental journalism which extended far beyond the readership of the specialist journal, ENDS Report, which he edited for more than two decades.

    ENDS began in 1978 as the newsletter of Environmental Data Services. Its aim was to provide authoritative intelligence on environmental affairs to business and industry. Mayer , an early recruit, did most of the writing, and became editorial director when, eventually, ENDS achieved commercial viability.

    It became essential reading in the environmental community and beyond. Civil servants read it to find out what colleagues were up to; middle managers in industry used it to convince their bosses that the environment mattered; many mainstream environmental stories originated in ENDS ; NGOs drew on it for campaigns; parliamentary committees and academics frequently cited it.

    In 1999 Mayer received the Society of Chemical Industry environmental medal “for outstanding and sustained contributions to the analysis and industrial dissemination of environmental policy and legislation”.

    ENDS won high praise for its coverage of EU environmental policy. Mayer ‘s engagingly bohemian figure was a frequent sight at hearings of the environment sub-committee of the House of Lords EU Committee, the leading parliamentary investigative committee in the field. His penetrating digests of evidence made absorbing reading. As a former member put it: “Often ENDS provided information that even our most thorough examination of witnesses had not revealed.” A former clerk recalls the value of conversations with Mayer behind the scenes for the purposes of briefing the committee, framing questions to witnesses and drafting conclusions for the report.

    Marek Jerzy Tadeusz Mayer was born in a Polish emigre community in South London.

    His parents (who arrived in England in 1946) had been active in the Warsaw Rising.

    His father, an uncle and his grandfather achieved military distinction something of which Mayer was immensely proud. He grew up bilingual and always cultivated his links with Poland. He took an environmental science degree at Wye College (University of London), and an MA at Manchester -with a dissertation on H. G.

    Wells.

    In 1994 he was much affected by the death in Madagascar of his friend Andrew Lees, campaigns director of Friends of the Earth UK. Mayer became a trustee of the Andrew Lees Trust, set up to help Malagasy people to manage and protect their health, food supply and natural environment. It was a venture dear to his heart, which he was able to support generously thanks to the growing financial success of

    ENDS .

    Mayer lived with the novelist Sue Gee in North London for 27 years; they married in November 2003. In 1999 they bought a cottage in the Welsh borders, where Mayer developed a passion for growing vegetables. He walked and ran in the hills until prevented by his illness, a rare form of renal cancer, a subject on which, with his characteristic intellectual curiosity, he became an expert.

    At a time when much of the language of environmentalism and sustainable development has descended to the level of comfortable cliche, Mayer ‘s ability and integrity are thrown into high relief.

    His persistence, penetration and refusal to be fobbed off with spin or platitudes, coupled with objectiveness, good writing and a pleasing lack of arrogance, served as a beacon to a generation of environmental journalists.

    He is survived by his wife and his son.
    ******************************

  8. Alison Parker says:

    Hi Everyone hope you are all ready for the march on sat 8th Jan 10.30am . My kids can not wait! We can all show Peel who really owns our town! And its not his for the taking! We have had enough of Peel with all his new developments . And we do not want any more! Big Thank You to the people in Urmston Town Centre who were all very nice to me and all the team. You made very cold days a lot warmer and worth while for all of us.

  9. Michael Ryan says:

    Here’s link to Shropshire Council’s website where they make the same claim about no harm to health that was made by Sita in Cornwall and which the ASA ruled against.

    http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/waste.nsf/open/79684DCA4389E1A28025732A002B3C21

    • Home Environment and planningWaste and recycling Your waste services
    Energy from Waste facility – FAQs

    Would the EfW facility be safe?
    Yes. EfW is a tried and tested technology, subject to stringent legislation – including the same pollution limits as other European countries must meet the European Union’s Waste Incineration Directive criteria. The technology is advanced and widely accepted across the UK, continental Europe, the USA and Japan.
    The Health Protection Agency, Environment Agency and Defra have concluded and endorsed the fact that energy from waste operated in compliance with relevant European legislation is safe for human health and the environment…continues.

    **********************

    Saying something’s safe is easy. Proving it is another matter.

    When I reported the high rates of illness and premature deaths associated with emissions from Ironbridge power station to Shropshire CC’s Cheif Executive in October 2005, she sent my e-mail to Shropshire County PCT, who contacted Health Protection Agency, who then arranged a cover-up meeting involving 2 PCTs., 3 Councils, the power company (Eon), the Environment Agency & Health Protection Agency. How do I know the above? Because used Data Protection Act & FoI and the Information Commissioner had to “persuade” both PCTs to comply.

  10. Do you people have a facebook fan page? I looked for one on twitter but could not discover one, I would really like to become a fan!

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