THE recent report adding weight to fears of public safety for those living close to toxic landfill sites, has prompted a flood of angry letters to the Wakefield Express calling for the council to stop allowing toxic waste to be dumped on their doorsteps.
The report, published by The Lancet, revealed there is a 40 per cent increase in the possibility of babies being born with chromosomal defects for those living within two miles of a toxic landfill site.
Many residents living on the edge of Welbeck landfill site, near Normanton have been campaigning against the site for years and feel vindicated by each report into birth defects which has been published.
Robin Stocks, of Wakefield Road, Denby Dale, was awarded compensation when his complaint that Wakefield Council had misled the public about Welbeck was upheld. When the licence was first granted, Wakefield Council said the site would not accept toxic waste. Now the original licence has been amended and site manager, Waste Recycling Group, is now licenced to accept toxic or special waste.
He said: "Our councillors cannot keep burying their heads in the sand they need to do something. They should have the courage to admit that they were wrong, and to stop Welbeck accepting any special waste. Now everyone knows that it is dangerous to allow toxic waste so close to residential areas.
"Does the council allow this to go on because it is such a big share holder in Welbeck? Whatever the reason, they should listen to the evidence and act on it now. They are putting their quest for profit before the safety of the people who elected them."
Former vice-president of the Yorkshire NUM, Ken Capstick, of Gisburn Road, Eastmoor, lives in a property looking out on to the Welbeck tip. He wrote: "It seems ironic that communities that suffered for centuries from industrial pollution of one kind or another are now the same communities that have to suffer from the pollution of something far worse and much more dangerous.
"My great loves are my children and my grandchildren. I want them to enjoy a better life. The Government, the local authority and the Environment Agency have no right to gamble with their health.
"Is toxic waste to be dumped on our doorsteps for the next 20 years without regard to the dangers? And are we really such money grabbers that we play about with the health of our people and in the process turn the Wakefield district into the dustbin of Europe?"
As a result of the Lancet report, the Department of Health has pledged support for further research. And last week said: "Work on exposure of residents near landfill sites is underway as part of the Government's continuing programme of work on landfill sites and health."
l RATS Residents Against Toxic Sites have thrown next Tuesday's committee meeting open to the public because of the upsurge of interest following the publication of the report on birth defects near landfill sites.
The meeting will be held in the lounge room at Lee Brigg WMC from 7.30pm.
See Letters page 6