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Contaminated Brownfield Sites

I congratulate the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) on securing this important debate. I shall keep my contribution as brief as possible, as I am aware that the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) might want to catch your eye later, Mr. Cummings. I asked a question at Prime Minister's questions last week on 16 November and last night I received a response, which I am grateful to the Prime Minister for and I shall make sure that it gets to the right quarter. My question concerned the contamination of a site proposed for building development in Rochdale. I live in Rochdale; the hon. Member for Rochdale is my Member of Parliament, so I take all my complaints to him. I live close to the site, which is called Spodden valley and was the site of the world's very first and largest asbestos textile factory—first a Turner Brothers factory, then a Turner and Newall factory. It was the largest employer in the town in its time. Many people in Rochdale, including local people who had never worked at the factory but were exposed to its environment, have died as a result of the asbestos produced; asbestos was produced on the site from the 1870s until the 1990s. As we know, asbestos is now outlawed throughout the European Union. The factory site produced high levels of asbestos dust, including asbestos fall-out that escaped from the factory buildings and settled on the factory and the surrounding land. The surrounding land included disused coal mines and was used for dumping large amounts—potentially tens of thousands of tonnes—of asbestos waste on the site. The entire Spodden valley, which is approximately 72 acres, was sold by the administrators of Turner and Newall in April 2004 to property developers MMC Estates Ltd. An offshore company, Rathbone Jersey Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Countryside Properties plc, entered into an option agreement at the same time. In May 2004, contractors working for the developers began destruction of the woodland to the north and south of the site, but felling was halted by the intervention of the Forestry Commission and the local council because of their concerns. A reaction to the woodland destruction and concern about disturbance of soil that could be contaminated with asbestos was the formation of a local group, Save Spodden Valley. In December 2004, Countryside Properties (Northern) Ltd., Rathbone Jersey Ltd. and MMC Developments Ltd. submitted an outline planning application for demolition of all the buildings on the site and replacement with more than 600 homes and community facilities, including a children's nursery. That is when the problems started. The planning application was put on hold by the local authority pending an environmental impact assessment commissioned by the authority. I understand that the results of that assessment were due this month. Throughout 2005, there has been a continuous series of BBC reports and Private Eye articles. Although the developers denied that there was asbestos on or around the site, it has been reported that they knew about exposed asbestos since at least September 2004 and about a 2003 site-contamination drawing suggesting contamination throughout the site. Those are the concerns of the local community. I am directly involved because it was recently decided to move some of the 3,000 tonnes of rubble, which is a huge amount. Discovering the extent of the contamination of that rubble by asbestos is difficult; it seems to be a secret. I am not sure whether the agencies are allowed to publicise the results of tests, but the local community is finding it difficult to obtain the information. The issue for me is the transfer of that rubble through the constituency of the hon. Member for Rochdale and the length of my constituency, and its eventual dumping in the Viridor landfill site in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor). There is a hazardous waste cell on that landfill site that can take some of the rubble, but I do not know how much. The issue for me is: how safe is it to transfer that rubble by road through two constituencies and into a third? Assurances were given in the Prime Minister's letter that all checks have been carried out, but the local community is not convinced and tried to have an injunction put on the transfer of the rubble last week and the week before but failed to achieve that. A public meeting will be held in the town tonight because of people's concerns. They have experienced the problems caused by asbestos for a very long time. I hope that the Minister will look at the matter in the light of what I have said. I am sure that if the hon. Member for Rochdale is allowed to speak he will support what I have said.