The Spodden Valley asbestos controversy arose in May 2004 when approximately of land in Spodden Valley in Rochdale, England, formerly used by Turner Brothers Asbestos Company (later known as Turner & Newall), and the site of the world's largest asbestos textile factory, was sold to MMC Estates, a property developer. The developer subsequently submitted a planning application to Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council in December 2004 to build an "urban village" consisting of 650 homes, a children's daycare centre and a business park on the site. The planning application summary claimed: "of particular note is the absence of any asbestos contamination". However, asbestos-containing materials were abundantly visible on the ground, and local residents claimed that there were numerous asbestos dumping sites across the area, and that the woodland there had been heavily contaminated with asbestos dust. Site clearance work had begun as early as May 2004, prior to the submission of the application, including tree felling and soil disturbance, and some waste had been removed on flatbed trailers and open trucks. In September 2005 MMC admitted that the woods were significantly contaminated with asbestos.
A campaign group, Save Spodden Valley, was formed to oppose the development, claiming disturbance of the site in a contaminated state posed too great a risk to public health. Greater Manchester Association of Trade Unions Councils said: "The planners must do their public duty and deem the site permanently unsafe for urban development and formulate a plan to seal all possible sources of asbestos dust as an urgent priority."
The initial planning application was placed on hold in 2005, and Richard Butler, Principal Planning Officer for Rochdale Borough Council said in October 2008: "The application has not yet been determined and is suspended whilst the applicants and their consultants, together with our own contamination experts, assess a number of issues, the most important being the asbestos risk and the remediation required as part of the redevelopment." In December 2009, despite no decontamination work having been carried out, the council earmarked the site for 568 houses, based on a housing density of 30 dwellings per hectare, in a draft allocation of future brownfield land targets. In January 2010, however, the council deleted references to the redevelopment of the site. Rochdale parliamentary candidate Simon Danczuk warned that the council believe a housing development on the site is an inevitability and iterated that they are "sleepwalking into a catastrophic mistake." MMC have stated that "there is no viable alternative to development led remediation of the site." A National Health and Safety Commissioner who was formerly a Health and Safety Manager at the factory has said that the felling of trees and disturbing of soil on the site is "sheer madness... With the potential amount of asbestos on that site, no development should be built on this land." Hilda Palmer of the Greater Manchester Hazards Centre has said: "Asbestos is a carcinogen and it causes lung diseases. When asbestos gets into the air and can be inhaled by people it can cause those diseases 10, 20, 50 years down the line. So if there is any development on that site there is a potential for serious lung diseases, cancers and death from that development." Spokesman Jason Addy of Save Spodden Valley, stated: "The key issue is contamination. Asbestos from this site has killed far too many people already."
The planning application was finally officially rejected by Rochdale Council in January 2011. MMC Estates put the land back up for sale in August 2011. As of December 2018, the land was owned by Renshaw Properties, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Background
The manufacture of asbestos products began on the site in 1879, and by 1970 the factory had an annual output of 2,250,000 yards of asbestos cloth and of asbestos yarn. The dangerous nature of asbestos fibres had first been suspected in 1898, when Factory Inspector Lucy Deane reported: "The evil effects of asbestos dust have also instigated a microscopic examination of the mineral dust by HM Medical Inspector [Thomas Legge]. Clearly revealed was the sharp glass-like jagged nature of the particles, and where they are allowed to rise and to remain suspended in the air of the room in any quantity, the effects have been found to be injurious as might have been expected." In 1924 a 33-year-old Turner's employee, Nellie Kershaw, became the first officially recognised victim of asbestosis but the firm refused to accept responsibility for her death, saying it would "create a precedent". Her family received no compensation, and she was buried in a pauper's grave in Rochdale.
In 1937, Turner's director Robert H. Turner wrote: "All asbestos fibre dust is a danger to lungs. If we can produce evidence from this country that the industry is not responsible for any asbestosis claims, we may be able to avoid tiresome regulations and the introduction of dangerous occupational talk." Despite an awareness of the potentially lethal effects of asbestos, the factory site remained heavily contaminated: measurements taken in 1950 and again in 1957 showed levels of asbestos dust in the air outside the factory roof were between 18 and 60 particles per cubic centimetre - far above the company's own safe working level of 2 to 3 particles, while a measurement taken near houses outside the factory premises was 47 particles. In August 1957, Turner's revealed that they were dumping 15,000 lb (6.8 tonnes) of asbestos dust recovered from ventilation filters alone each week. The same document reported that the levels of asbestos dust on the factory's roof exceeded those in the actual production areas inside the factory. In the 1950s people living near the factory joked that the area had frost all year round and the local woods were nicknamed "the snow trees" due to the permanent dusting with asbestos particles.
In 1964 a letter to Turner's directors from solicitors James Chapman & Co admitted: "We have over the years been able to talk our way out of claims or compromise for comparatively small amounts, but we have always recognised that at some stage solicitors of experience would, with the advance in medical knowledge and the development of the law, recognise there is no real defence to these claims and take us to trial." By the mid-1970s however the number of asbestos-related deaths began to increase steadily and from 1980 onwards the asbestos market began to decline dramatically. In 1982 the company posted losses of £30million, including compensation payouts of £6million. In 1998, with 263,000 claims for industrial injury pending, Turner's was bought by Federal-Mogul. In 2001, Federal-Mogul filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a result of asbestos-related claims amounting to $351million. In the United Kingdom the business went into administration in October 2001 leaving a pension fund deficit estimated at £400 million. UK victims of the company's asbestos pollution were offered only a fraction of the compensation to which they were entitled. The weaving and asbestos producing areas of the Spodden Valley site were subsequently demolished in 2001.
Land purchase MMC Estates and Rathbone Jersey Limited purchased the site in May 2004, and said: "Any successful regeneration must find alternative uses and following discussions with the council, the site was defined as an 'area of opportunity' for a mixed use 'urban village' type development, comprising primarily employment and residential development supported by an appropriate level of ancillary uses. This will be supported by an environmental impact statement. MMC is a local developer responsible for the sympathetic council-backed regeneration of other sites within the borough, and has commenced some clearance works involving the felling of trees which are not protected by tree preservation orders." A Rochdale Council Draft Unitary Development Plan published earlier in the year had accepted that "the whole site is contaminated as a result of the industrial processes carried out there" and Administrators of Turner's considered the site "an asset of dubious value, (possibly even a liability)." The Administrators also stated that if mesothelioma or asbestos-related cancer deaths arose from any future development on the site, the liability for this would rest with the new owners and developers of the land.
Tree felling Between May 13–14, 2004 the site was enclosed with temporary mesh fencing and plain-clothed security guards commenced patrols of the public areas. At 02:00 on May 15 bulldozers arrived at the site and tree-felling began at 07:00. The work caused immediate concern to nearby residents who feared the work might unsettle asbestos deposits in the ground. Residents formed the Save Spodden Valley action group the following week. Residents also protested to Rochdale Council, which subsequently issued an emergency tree preservation order on six parts of the site, preventing the removal of trees without permission of planning officers, and carrying a fine of up to £20,000 per tree. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also secured a voluntary arrangement to halt any work that could disturb soil on the site pending soil sampling. Former Turner's employees and local residents claimed that, as recently as the 1960s, asbestos dust and fibres were clearly visible hanging from the trees, and that a disused coalmine shaft exposed by the tree felling had been used over a period of decades to dump hundreds of tonnes of asbestos waste.
"Rochdale's Chernobyl" In November 2004 Rochdale councillor Tom Stott, a former employee at Turner's, warned that any development of the site could be an environmental disaster, and that there could be so much asbestos waste in the ground that serious disturbance could lead to "Rochdale's Chernobyl." He also expressed concern that the developers would be allowed by the council to carry out their own contamination survey to determine whether the site was fit for development, which was confirmed by the council: "Any developers would have to provide a full environmental assessment of the site as part of their planning application. The council wouldn't be doing any surveys of its own because it doesn't have the expertise or the resources to do this."
Urban village plans In December 2004 plans were submitted, in partnership with Countryside Properties, to build an 'urban village' over two-thirds of the site, comprising residential and business developments, a retail site and doctor's surgery. MMC director Mark Russell stated that the plans were in 'everyone's interests' and would be carried out without harming the environment or causing problems with old asbestos: "At the end of the day this is a contaminated site with lots of old, ugly, dilapidated buildings on and it needs something doing with it. It is in everyone's interests that this happens." The planning application summary claimed: "of particular note is the absence of any asbestos contamination". A report submitted by the developers said only one out of the 86 soil tests they carried out showed any traces of asbestos dust, and that traces of lead and copper were more prevalent on the site. A working party of six councillors expressed concern that many areas on the site might have been unchecked, however, and Councillor Elwyn Watkins said that he had personally observed asbestos-containing materials hanging on trees when he joined campaigners on the north side of the site. Heavy winds in January 2005 felled several trees, revealing asbestos-like fibres on the exposed roots. Residents eventually had the waste tested themselves at an independent laboratory where it was confirmed to be Amosite ("brown asbestos"), the most hazardous of the asbestos minerals because of its long persistence in the lungs of exposed people.