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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Barbara Dring has been suspended on the same day her whistleblowing about planned NHS closure – denounced as ‘lies’ by local right-wing MPs – was confirmed correct

Barbara Dring, the 89-year-old Birmingham councillor ‘bullied’ and labelled a liar by right-wing Labour MPs for warning that a vital local health centre was about to be closed, has been suspended by the party – for talking to third parties about local issues.

Cllr Dring and a local health campaigner warned in the summer that Warren Farm health centre faced closure, forcing local people to travel miles for treatment – and was dismissed as a liar by MPs Khalid Mahmood and Paulette Hamilton. The situation prompted campaigner Lorraine Donnally to put in a formal complaint to Labour. Cllr Dring was briefly hospitalised with a suspected stroke that her supporters believe was a reaction to the stress of the situation.

Today, local newspapers confirmed that the centre will be closed and its services moved more than two miles away.

On the same day, the party suspended Cllr Dring, apparently for whistleblowing. At the same time, it has also suspended Des Hughes, the only other Labour councillor in Oscott ward – leaving Labour with no representation in an area with two Tory councillors.

One local told Skwawkbox that Labour has ‘shot itself in the foot’:

They’re idiots. There are two Tory councillors there and under the new boundaries the ward will fall into the Erdington constituency that Paulette Hamilton will be trying to win, without local council representation. They’ve really shot themselves in the foot.

Others were even more plainspoken. Ms Donnally, the health campaigner who complained to Labour about the behaviour of the local MPs, wrote on Facebook to link the suspensions to the health centre closure – and her comments about the party’s ‘disgusting’ conduct were echoed by other locals:

Birmingham City Council’s Labour chief whip Ray Goodwin is reportedly under investigation by the party over his conduct in the position but has not been suspended – yet Labour has suspended two councillors fighting to keep open a crucial important health facility.

Khalid Mahmood’s awful record as Birmingham Perry Barr MP includes wrongfully sacking former staffer Elaina Cohen for blowing the whistle on ‘criminal’ and ‘sadistic’ abuse of vulnerable domestic violence victims by another Mahmood staffer who was also his lover. Sworn testimony by one of the victims to an employment tribunal in the wrongful dismissal case was not challenged by either Mahmood or his legal team.

The right-winger has also been accused by Bangladeshi media of accepting a bribe from a convicted Bangladeshi fugitive seeking help with his asylum case – and by Elaina Cohen of accepting cash from the Kuwait embassy. He has denied any wrongdoing.

At no point has Keir Starmer or his sidekick David Evans taken action against Mahmood, even to suspend him to protect alleged victims while Mahmood was on Starmer’s front bench. The whistleblower’s emails to Starmer and Evan, as well as Mahmood’s own sworn testimony, make clear that Starmer and Evans were fully aware of the allegations and covered them up.

Bullying, smears and cover-ups have been exposed as rife on the part of the Labour right.

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Read below for her full speech – and the council’s excuses for its attack on democracy and free speech

Helen Marks protesting for Gazans during October’s Labour conference (image rights S Walker)

Liverpool City Council has withdrawn Jewish resident Helen Marks’s speaking slot at tonight’s meeting of the council, where she had successfully applied to address the council to ask it to call for a ceasefire and peace deal in Gaza, where Israel has slaughtered around 15,000 people, half of them children, in a relentless campaign of bombing homes, hospitals and schools.

Ms Marks had been told by the council’s Principal Democratic Services Officer:

You will be able to speak for 3 minutes at the Council Meeting, would you be able to send me a statement as to what you are going to say to the meeting please?

We are also ticketing the meeting, so you will need to be sent a ticket via email for the meeting. You will be allowed 2 tickets if you need another one and I would also need the name of the person attending with you.

As requested, Ms Marks sent a draft of her planned speech. It reads:

My name is Helen Marks. I am secretary of Liverpool Friends of Palestine. I am from a Jewish family. My mother was brought up in mandate Palestine and my Polish Jewish father lost his parents, a brother, aunts , uncles and cousins in the holocaust.

I have asked to speak today to urge you to call for an immediate ceasefire . However, I want you to go further if a ceasefire is agreed and insist that it is accompanied by genuine peace talks to find a lasting solution to this endless cycle of violence.

When the holocaust took place during the 2nd World War most people in the world could justifiably say that they were unaware of what was taking place. They were also incredulous when they learned the facts. They couldn’t believe that any one or any country could behave in such a calculated, despicable way.

Fast forward to the current situation in Gaza. We have no such excuse. Every day we see on our TV screens Gaza being bombed and innocent men women and children being killed in the most calculated, brutal way ; thousands of body bags, children screaming for their mummy. An acronym has been coined. WCNSF Wounded Children No Surviving Family. There are now more than 33,000 Palestinian orphans living in Gaza.

I abhor the killing of innocent Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas on the 7th October and feel especially sad that some were from a Kibbutz where the residents were critical of the injustices suffered by the Palestinians. However the Israeli response is disproportionate, inhumane and must be stopped.

How can this be happening in this day and age? Did all this violence start on October 7th or must we put it in context ?

Hajo Meyer, holocaust survivor, spent his adult years warning us that holocausts don’t just appear. They happen because of a process of dehumanising the other and that is what successive Israeli governments have been doing in relation to the Palestinians, never calling them Palestinians just Arabs, labelling them all as terrorists, calling them human animals. When I was in Hebron in 2008 I saw daubed on the doors of Palestinian houses “ Kill all Arabs” with a star of David alongside. In 2014, Justice Minister Ayalet Shaked said that the mothers of Palestinian martyrs should go ,as should their homes “ otherwise more little snakes will be raised”.

It is much easier to kill your enemy if you view them as sub human.

In 2022 Amnesty International published a report based on 4 yrs of research which concluded that Israel was an Apartheid state according to the legally accepted definition. This report was backed up by reports by Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem. They saw the expansion of illegal settlements, the theft of land for military purposes, the denial of planning permission for housing, the restricted access to water, the numerous checkpoints that denied free movement, the imprisonment of adults and young people under military not civil law and the killing of Palestinians without proper investigations. Over 160 Palestinians have since been killed in the West Bank following 7th October.

What is happening now in Gaza, like the recent bombing of a school in the Jabalia refugee camp killing 200 children and staff is not self defence or helping to root out Hamas. It must stop.

If you fail to call for an end to the occupation a lifting of the siege of Gaza, a solution to the over 6,000 refugees languishing in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine itself then the cycle of violence will continue.

There were ceasefires after 2008/9, 2012, 2014, 2018 but the Western Powers continued to protect Israel, pretend it did not have nuclear weapons, backed the false PR that it had the most moral army in the world and was the only democracy in the Middle East and rewarded it with prestigious hosting of events irrespective of its behaviour. And the US and UK continue to send it arms .

I am sure as councillors you will not mistakenly conflate this criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

I call on you to demand an immediate ceasefire that is followed by a clear programme that delivers justice for the Palestinians.

However, this straightforward and factual speech fell foul of the council’s City Solicitor Daniel Fenwick, who claimed that it would breach the so-called ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism – a definition that does not actually define, and which has been criticised by Jewish legal experts and even its author as a means of chilling free speech on and legitimate criticism of Israel. Fenwick wrote, withdrawing Marks’s permission to speak at the meeting:

Dear Ms Marks,

Council Public Speaking Rights

I write with regard to your request to speak at the above meeting and your draft statement which has been passed to me as the Council’s Monitoring Officer for assessment under the Council Procedure Rules (rule 12).

Unfortunately, the Council already had three speakers registered to speak for the Council meeting by the time you registered to speak. For completeness, whilst you emailed the Council on 7th November, the Council replied to you on the same day advising you how to make your request to speak after the publication of the agenda on 14th November. A third and final request to speak was received on 17th November at 9.46am and your request was received at 10.54am on that day. I am sorry this was not communicated earlier to you but, unfortunately, having check the times of the emails, this is the correct order in which they were received and as Monitoring Officer I have no authority to waive this rule..
I believe you have tickets for the public gallery and we look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Your Statement

Thank you for the draft of your statement. For completeness, I have reviewed your statement under the Council’s procedure rules and thought it would assist you if I gave you my views for future reference, if you had been able to speak at the meeting. As currently drafted, your statement could not accepted as it breaches the following rules on the acceptance of public statements:

12.8 The Monitoring Officer may reject a request to speak if:
…
12.8.3 it is defamatory, frivolous or offensive

It is my view as the Council’s Monitoring Officer that whilst it is legitimate freedom of expression to criticise the Israeli government’s policies and actions in Gaza, there are significant elements of the statement’s content that risks a breach the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of Anti-Semitism, which was adopted by the Council as its definition of anti-Semitism in January 2018. Your statement is therefore likely to be offensive to the Jewish community and others in the city and beyond. For this reason, the Council cannot place itself at risk of breaching its own policies and potentially discriminating unlawfully against any person by making a decision to allow it to be read in its current form.

The statement if read out would further place the Council at risk of breaching its public sector equality duty under s.149 of the Equality Act 2010. The Council must have due regard to the achievement of this duty and, as one example, the statement as worded is also unlikely to foster good relations between Jews, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and with those without those protected characteristics under the 2010 Act in Liverpool and beyond, noting the context of the horrific rise of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks since 7 October.

Thank you for showing an interest in speaking at the Council meeting.

Skwawkbox wrote to Fenwick to ask him to be specific about why he was taking this action and exactly what in Marks’s speech he considered to breach the ‘definition’:

Mr Fenwick,

You contacted Jewish activist Helen Marks by email informing her that she would not be able to speak at tonight’s council meeting – despite, though your email did not acknowledge this, her having received confirmation of a 3-minute slot from the council’s Principal Democratic Services Officer. You claim there are too many speakers and that her speech might breach the IHRA ‘definition of anti-semitism’, but do not say why. I have seen the statement and it is self-evidently legitimate criticism of Israel for its actions and merely being offensive to someone is not a breach of the IHRA, which in any case has been criticised by legal experts and even its founder for its chilling effect on free speech.

Apologies for the short notice, but as the meeting takes place at 5pm I will be covering this imminently so ask for your response no later than 2pm on the following – as you have already made these deliberations before writing to Ms Marks, it should not be onerous to provide the information:

1. Why are you denying a Jewish resident her right of democratic expression on a matter of obvious public importance concerning Israel and Gaza?
2. What precisely in her planned statement do you think breaches the IHRA and why?
3. Were you instructed or pressured by anyone inside or outside the council to withdraw permission?

He did not answer the questions, instead saying only that the council meeting will be livestreamed and directing the enquiry to the council’s communications team, who did not respond even well after the press deadline. Opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza are mounting a protest outside Liverpool’s City Hall before the 5pm council meeting.

Ms Marks, who was one of two Liverpool Jewish party members smeared by Labour officials in a widely-condemned 2019 BBC Panorama programme, told Skwawkbox that the council’s manoeuvres were ‘feeble but predictable’:

I was given permission to make a 3-minute statement at today’s council meeting but this permission was withdrawn for very feeble but predictable reasons. I was speaking in support of Alan Gibbon’s motion calling on councillors to vote for an immediate ceasefire. I have since sent all councillors the statement I would have read out.

Labour’s betrayal of Palestinian civilians continues even in a city whose people have shown strong solidarity with those Gazan women and children facing genocide and ethnic cleansing.

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