Contamination at Corby - compensation potentially to be paid by Stockport Council for children's ill health and deformities

Dear Stockport Borough Council,

In the light of the Corby incident where that Council has had to
pay compensation for the damage done to children by contamination,
has Stockport Council yet discussed the Harcourt Street school with
its insurers?

As local MP Andrew Gwynne said in a parliamentary debate on 1st
November 2005..."To put my concerns into context, I wish briefly to
take the House on a tour of my constituency. In the Tameside part
of the seat, we have three other former Jackson Brick clay
extraction sites. As at Harcourt Street, those sites were all
landfilled int he 1970s before the licensing regime existed, and
were subsequently converted into playing fields. The first site is
Guide Lane, Audenshaw. I refer the House to a repotr of Tameside
Metropolital Borough Council, which states: "This is a former clay
pit and problems with landfill gas migration became apparent in
late 1997. Landfill gas alarms were fitted in four properties after
gas was found after a routine insepction. Following this the
Council received funding to insall a venting trench with extraction
stacks."

The next report is Windmill Lane, Denton. Tameside Council's report
adds "The Denton landfill site was filled during the 1970s and is
known to be producing landfill gas and leachate." The final site is
Ruby Street, Denton, and the report states: "This site, a former
clay pit, was identified as a problem in 1989 with gas found to be
migrating from the site. Tameside received funding to install a gas
extraction system across the site. The site remains closed off to
the public and responsibility has been transferred to the
Environment Agency"

As if that were not bad enough, there is another Jackson's site at
Adswood, in Stockport Borough itself. It is also experiencing
substantial problems with gassing and leachate. In the report that
went to the Council's Executive, not a single mention was made of
the fact that the Harcourt Street site was a former landfill site -
even though it is clearly logged on the Council's contamination
land register."

Now, I am sure Stockport Council will declare me vexatious for
asking this question and refuse a reply but any visitors to this
site might make their own minds up. I was right about the
contamination; the site has been proved to be extensively
contaminated which Stockport Council tried very, very hard to leave
in situ, I was right about the missing £5 million to fund it. This
is not vexatiousness. It is expressing genuine concerns about the
safety of 550 primary school children and babies in the proposed
nursery, concern about the waste of £5 million of council
taxpayers' money unnecessarily and concern that if the school is
built, that it could never actually be used.

I look forward to receiving your customary flat refusal to respond.
However, for legal reasons these issues have been raised on this
site at this time.

Kind regards

Yours faithfully,

Sheila

Dear FOI Officer,

If you say so, Ms Naven, if you say so.

Yours sincerely,

Sheila Oliver