Dirty tactics and diverted emails as council ramrods through permission for Veolia to process Flixborough-disaster waste chemical in vast quantities – with no benefit to locals

Campaigner Gary Woollam and Garston independent councillor Sam Gorst after the council’s decision

On Tuesday afternoon, Liverpool City Council’s planning committee approved plans for corporate giant Veolia to vastly increase its processing of a hugely explosive waste chemical, Cyclohexanone, in the middle of a residential area of some 30,000 people.

Cyclohexanone was the chemical involved in the 1974 Flixborough disaster in Lincolnshire, when a failure at an ICI plant processing some 47,000 tonnes of the chemical a year caused an explosion that killed 28 workers, severely wounded dozens of others and damaged buildings more than three miles away.

The new Veolia applications would see an additional 56,000 tonnes a year – broken down into two separate applications of 28,000 tonnes each, on top of a current capacity of around 56,000 (according to Private Eye). Government rules mean stricter vetting for applications of 30,000 tonnes a year. The company wants to take the waste chemical from Intel production facilities in Ireland.

During the meeting – described by veterans of Liverpool planning meetings as unprecedented in the number of councillors and officers in attendance – campaigners told the planning committee of the great risks and that one of the key recommendations of the inquiry into Flixborough was that Cyclohexane waste should never be processed close to residential areas. The council had already approved the processing of around 28,000 tonnes at the site – yet according to campaigners not a single document relating to safety issues has been filed by Veolia in its new or 2021 applications.

Committee members, panel and council officers in the council chamber on Tuesday

Committee members were also warned that the council is in a ‘Post Office moment’ – a reference to the huge, ongoing scandal of sub-postmasters falsely accused, bankrupted and criminalised by the Post Office to hide the failings of its ‘Horizon’ accounting system. The incoming waste and outgoing processed chemicals will pass through further heavily populated areas on its way from the port to the plant and back.

A scene from a documentary about the Flixborough disaster

Campaigners also disputed the council’s claim that the increased volume would only lead to a small number of additional lorries per day, calculating that at least some 177 extra journeys would take place in an area already plagued by traffic and poor roads. According to Garston’s councillors, Veolia has refused to contribute to road maintenance costs or to provide ‘106 money’ for social developments in the local area and has said that there will be no local employment boost.

Cylohexanone is categorised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an ‘acute’ risk of explosion. WHO figures also show that the Speke-Garston area already suffers double the levels of NO3 and dangerous small particulates in its air. The area already has one of the worst rates of respiratory disease and lung cancer in the city.

The council’s officers insisted that:

• the plan will result in ‘imperceptible’ additional pollution
• the plan will create no noticeable noise increase
• the site’s discharges into the river will not pollute it

One local said:

I’ve never heard of such a magical factory that can vastly increase its throughput and not create any noise or pollution! This is a time-bomb – nobody expects things to go wrong until they do, but unlike Flixborough this is happening in the middle of tens of thousands of people and only 200 metres from the nearest school.

Councillors visited the site on Tuesday morning – their bus waited more than an hour after the scheduled time until protesters at the gates had dispersed, causing the 11.15am meeting to begin at 1pm. Those present noted that there were no lorries at all on the site – which has only a small road leading to it – during the visit.

Liverpool Community Independent councillors Sam Gorst (front) and Alan Gibbons listen to campaigners

Despite meeting Veolia representatives, when asked at the meeting whether they even knew what the prevailing wind direction was and where any pollution and potential discharges in a failure would be likely to blow, one committee member responded that it was impossible to say because the wind ‘can blow from any direction’. The prevailing wind at the site is from the south-west, meaning that any disaster at the site in the south of the city would be likely to send chemicals over much if not all of Liverpool.

There was no discussion of the potential for disaster arising from the prevailing wind meaning that most of the traffic into Liverpool’s John Lennon airport, only a handful of miles away, would mean that many aircraft approaching the airport would fly close to or directly over the waste site. There has been no planning about the risk of sea-level rises in the tidal coastal site, or about storm surges and other flooding risks. A question from the local Friends of the Earth representative whether the site’s foundations have been checked for their suitability for the activities taking place went unanswered.

Campaigner Gary Woollam tells the council of the dangers of what it is doing

Local independent councillors and residents accused the council of a complete failure to properly consult with local residents and health professionals. The area’s largest health centre has joined locals in objecting to the new development.

When campaigners asked for independent experts to assess the hazards, they were told that ‘we have to trust the [council] officers, they’re independent’. Last month, council officers were exposed diverting emails from campaigners away from their intended recipients – and Cllr Gorst has said that many emails to him and his independent colleague Cllr Lucy Williams had also been diverted:

December’s Private Eye

Despite the objections from locals, the clear issues and dangers , the Flixborough recommendations about residential areas, the lack of proper consultation and the complete absence of any benefit to the local area and community – or indeed to the wider city – the committee chair moved to approve the application. Three committee members abstained, but Labour councillors voted the plan through.

Campaigners expressed their fury at the contempt they feel has been shown to local people who need an improvement are now planning to apply for a judicial review and an injunction to prevent the expansion going ahead until it is completed, and are expected to launch a crowdfund for the costs.

Editor’s note: the author of this piece is a Garston resident.

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