Council urged to back contaminated land law

A council is being urged to support a proposed new law to ensure greater transparency over contaminated land.

North Northamptonshire councillors will be asked to back Zane's Law, named after seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola, whose parents say he was killed by gas from landfill when their home in Surrey was flooded in 2014.

Children in Corby were born with birth defects, believed to have been caused when the town's steelworks were dismantled in the 1980s.

Councillor Ben Williams, who will propose the motion at Thursday's council meeting, said: "If we can't back Zane's Law in North Northamptonshire... then I don't know where we can."

The proposed measures in Zane's Law include requiring councils to keep fuller public registers of contaminated sites.

It would ensure all potentially contaminated land is identified, made public, regularly inspected and properly cleaned up, where required.

Currently, the Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2000 and Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires all local authorities to maintain a public register where land is designated as a Special Site or where remediation notices are served.

However, the register does not include details of historic land use and other records used in the investigation of potentially contaminated land.

Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde's son Fraser was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at 17 months old.

They believe his condition is the result of "environmental factors" and fear it could be linked to toxic chemicals buried in the ground around Corby.

"We truly believe that this [proposed law] is an absolute necessity for this country, so people are in a safer place, there would be a land registry of everywhere that's contaminated," said Gaffney.

In January, North Northamptonshire Council said two independent analyses found childhood cancer rates in Corby were no higher than elsewhere in England.

It had agreed to look at the data after families raised concerns that more young people were being diagnosed than would be expected.

Implementing Zane's Law was adopted as Green Party policy in September.

Councillor Ben Williams, who represents the Ise ward in Kettering, was prompted to bring the motion after documents seen by the BBC emerged suggesting that hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste was dumped in Kettering.

"Since then, I've had lots of concerned residents following that report [asking] what that means for them," he said.

At the time, North Northamptonshire Council said records, originally held by Corby Borough Council, "do not show the movement of waste to sites other than Deene Quarry".

However, it was "recently made aware of a document that indicates some waste may have been moved to another location and we are currently considering that information".

It added there was "currently no evidence of a pollutant linkage or unacceptable risk to human health requiring action".

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