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Southall Waterside foul odours update

Sun 19 Sep 2021
Four years of a nuisance and possibly stress and anxiety causing “nausea, headaches or dizziness" is NOT "harmful to an individual’s long-term health".

Would you trust such advice from your doctor, council or Public Health England?

Those are the affects of the work being carried out at the contaminated Southall Gasworks (Southall Waterside) site by Berkeley Group. There are a lot of questions about what is being done and whether it is being done properly.

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Monitoring – yes but not to the satisfaction of the residents affected.

Monitoring daily pollution levels? Yes, but not what 4 years of it will do to resident’s health. What would 4 years of “nausea, headaches or dizziness" do to your health years?

Independent monitoring to satisfy the residents? Ealing Council, Berkeley Group and Public Health England do NOT understand the term independent. They all follow party political lines. They do NOT allow independent thinking.

Berkeley and Ealing Council are doing a lot of PR work and spending money generously. But not on the people affected by the pollution.

They knew that building on contaminated land would result in health issues. Yet they did NOT monitor the air quality before any work started.

Berkeley Group promised to install a monitor in a residents house but later could NOT explain why they changed their mind? Their management needed a technical person to explain it. It would have cost peanuts and re-assured a very concerned and badly affected resident. Why back away from an ideal PR job? Possibly the results may not be to their liking.

Concerns are real. They have been happening for 4 years. They happen a lot. Current affects are “nausea, headaches or dizziness". Grin and bear it for ANOTHER few more years. There will be no long-term effect on your health – say the men in suits sitting in the ivory tower to the deprived BAME residents of Southall.

Word of concern – “We understand. We are aware. Our hands are tied. There could be some other reason. There is no danger.”

Without independent legal opinion and independent monitoring – this is just political talk which say we will talk but do nothing. These above statements are also contradictory.

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Odours can cause a nuisance and possibly lead to stress and anxiety. They can cause "nausea, headaches or dizziness". Yet suffering from years of foul odours causing "nausea, headaches or dizziness" is NOT "harmful to an individual’s long-term health"

WHAT a load of absolute twaddle from Public Health England (PHE).
Keep all windows locked to stop the odour and stay indoors. No long term affects after 4 years?

What Southall residents need is a council leader like Simon Tagg who is standing with the residents and local businesses who are affected by toxic air pollution from Walleys Quarry, a landfill site in Newcastle under Lyme. The borough council served an abatement notice on the site operator which is being appealed. ”We will keep residents, businesses and all of our communities informed of any actions we intend to take and remain committed to addressing the foul odours experienced on a daily basis."

There has been no such desire from Ealing Council. Why?

Council excuses like “that the officer was unable to contact the complainant to obtain further details” is just ludicrous after 4 years of complaining?

“I am told that the same campaign group has previously been active in alleging odour nuisance from FM Conway limited” is Ealing Council officers trying to muddy the waters and hiding their inaction.

How long would our elected Ealing Council officials, Public Health England Officials or Berkeley Group management put up with this ongoing nightmare, if it was happening to them or their dear ones?


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