Corby waste dumped in Kettering, documents suggest

Toxic waste from Corby's steelworks was dumped in nearby Kettering, correspondence obtained by the BBC suggests.

The waste material was used to build temporary access roads in Kettering, about eight miles (13km) away, as well as car parks in and around Corby, according to the documents.

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

North Northamptonshire Council said it had recently been made aware of a document indicating waste may have been moved to another location, and that it was considering that information.

The correspondence is between the Environment Agency and the now-defunct Corby Borough Council.

Green councillors representing Kettering said it was time to expand the investigation of the toxic waste scandal.

Ben Williams, who represents Ise ward on North Northamptonshire Council, said water testing was needed to "see if we can correlate any similar pollutants to what they found in Corby".

He said: "We need to know where it is, what the impact is to local residents and the environment."

"It's a bit scary given the toxic town scandal. We don't want a repeat of that."

Williams called for a public inquiry covering the whole of Northamptonshire to find "the scale of the impact".

Lisa Atkinson, whose daughter, Simone, was born with three fingers on each hand, said she was not surprised at the latest revelations.

Referring to the 2009 High Court case, which found in favour of 18 families that Corby Borough Council was negligent in managing the former steelworks site, she said: "Everyone in the court case knew they [the cases] were too widespread, it wasn't a small cluster... so deep down in my tummy, I knew that it was somewhere else."

Tracey Taylor, whose baby daughter Shelby-Anne died at four days old, said she always believed the known extent of the dumping was "the tip of the iceberg" and that the issue needed to be sorted once and for all.

Des Collins, a solicitor who represented Corby families in the High Court case, said he was concerned toxic waste could be exposed accidentally.

"Because we've never been told where it is... people will start digging it up... you might want to build a housing estate; a factory," he said.

"You don't carry out the tests for it because you don't anticipate it's there... people will dig down into it and expose it without even knowing what they're doing."

He and the affected families have called for a public inquiry and a full apology.

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

"We were 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 said.

"From the council's perspective, there is currently no evidence of a pollutant linkage or unacceptable risk to human health requiring action under its statutory duties."

The Environment Agency said it recognised the concerns raised and that its initial review of the data in the Corby Metals Testing Report study "does not indicate any significant impact on the freshwater environment".

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