Community Members Pursuing Answers Regarding Contaminated Materials Locations

A local mother and Fraser's father received devastating information in 2018 when their 17-month-old Fraser was diagnosed with a uncommon form of leukaemia.

An extended period of intensive medical care followed, including drug treatments, targeted radiation, and immune system treatments before a bone marrow procedure. Fraser, at three years old, made a “miraculous recovery” from the surgery, with physicians declaring the disease in regression.

As Fraser improved that the mother, 36, began investigating causes. She constantly recalled remarks made by medical professionals at the time of her son’s diagnosis. “It keeps us up at night wondering how Fraser got his cancer,” a consultant had told her.

“We can't sleep wondering how Fraser got his cancer,” a consultant had informed her.

Background Information

The negligent management of millions of tonnes of contaminated waste after the shutdown of the town's primary employer in the town in 1979 had “widely acknowledged,” said Gaffney. A court ruling linked the improper remediation efforts of the site to a string of congenital abnormalities in town residents during the 1980s and 1990s.

Over time, Alison started to connect the case to her own. “[His illness] is not hereditary,” she explained. “So what are the reasons? … It has to be down to the area. Numerous young people [with] illness.

“Everybody in this town knows somebody who’s got a youngster [with] illness. That’s not normal.”

Community Action

The parents started to contact more parents in the town with parallel situations – featuring some of the mother's past schoolmates at a local school – and the organization began compiling comprehensive documentation on those involved. They now head a movement representing about 130 families with situations of childhood cancer going back to 1988.

The organization has been urging the local authority to research any connections between cases of pediatric illness in Corby and the shutdown of the industrial site. Soon, public health officials are preparing to share their analysis of whether the area has had a disproportionate number of cases of childhood cancer for its inhabitants of 70,000.

“All we want is to try and protect future people so they do not have to endure the suffering that we’ve been through,” said Gaffney.

Legal Precedents

The judgment in the legal case acknowledged that, between a fourteen-year period, vast quantities of toxic substances from the steel plant were moved “typically” from the one area to a designated site in the opposite end – with “significant amounts” of contaminated substances moved and dropped on community streets and “considerable amounts” of dust produced by the reclamation.

Nevertheless, it also cited reports from the Environment Agency in 1997 that discovered stockpiles of hazardous waste that had been abandoned at Deene Quarry were later taken away in “large quantities”.

Growing Suspicions

Gaffney suspects contaminated materials was not only dumped at the primary location but in additional areas of the community. Recently, she approved a “major step forward” after North Northamptonshire council said it would analyze soil that could be tainted and study where contaminated substances was deposited.

Alison said local officials acknowledged in the conference that they lacked information where the areas of hazardous substances could be. “They stated: ‘We don’t know where these locations are. Documentation is missing, we possess no information.’”

Community Support

The council’s announcement was also supported by a community member, a pastoral lead at a primary school, whose young child, the child, was confirmed to have leukaemia in June this year.

“I needed to cut my nine-year-old daughter's head because her locks was falling out from the treatments she had to administer to destroy her cancer. So actually it’s in the community's concern, it’s in the child's wellbeing [for the council] to disclose that information,” she stated.

“Numerous residents in the area that have been found to have youth disease and It seems it’s too much to ignore – it demands examination. This can’t be normal.”

Individual Accounts

A community member, in her early thirties, who has a professional career and now has moved away, said households deserved “full transparency and clarity” from the local authority.

The woman's young sibling, Eve, died on 24 June 2017 after being confirmed to have a specific illness at the age of nine. Her sister, who raised awareness for medical research, was “among the charming, entertaining and compassionate” people, she recalled.

Her family member remembers the consequence of the closure of the manufacturing site on the community, the woman explained. “She mentioned you couldn’t put your fingers in front of your face because [of] the particulate matter.”

“This has been going on since I was approximately about early childhood. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is negligence toward the local residents.”

Past Associations

Another family member, a community member, was one of several parents involved in the legal case against the then Corby council after her baby was had a foot condition. Her partner, Derek, was one of the lorry drivers responsible for transporting materials from the manufacturing facility. Their story was depicted in a television program, and illustrated the woman removing the particles from her spouse's clothing.

The campaign leader said the collective has been contacted by informants who were involved in the placement of substances in the community.