BBC investigation reveals ‘toxic secret’ beneath our feet

A year-long BBC investigation has found that there are thousands of areas potentially contaminated with toxic chemicals across the UK that have never been checked by councils – with many in Wales.

The findings come from new BBC Wales Investigates programme, Britain’s Toxic Secret, which airs on BBC One Wales and iPlayer at 8:30pm on 13 March.

The research shows that 9 in 10 sites that could contain substances such as lead or arsenic, which can pose a serious health risk according to scientists, have not been inspected by councils – even though they are required by law to do so.

Toxic legacy

For the programme the BBC Shared Data Unit contacted councils across England, Scotland and Wales about their duties to protect us from the toxic legacy left from Britain’s industrial past.

Councils are supposed to inspect sites that pose the highest risk of causing harm to health and homes. But BBC Wales Investigates discovered only 112 of 698 high risk sites in Wales, which councils themselves think could pose a significant risk to health, had been inspected.

Across the border, it’s a similar story, as the programme revealed only 1 in 10 high risk sites across Britain have been inspected.

It leaves thousands of potentially contaminated sites unchecked. This means that people across the UK could be unknowingly living on or next to potentially contaminated land, and run the risk of being exposed to toxic chemicals in the soil.

Manon Chiswell, 20, and her family strongly believe she became seriously ill as a child because of contaminated land at their home in Cardiff.

Her father, Welsh musician and actor, Huw Chiswell, recalls: “She developed quite normally up until a year and half, and then she stopped speaking and became quite withdrawn, not looking you in the eye and some of the classic symptoms of what we were eventually advised was autism.

“They did blood tests specifically for lead, and found that there was a high level of lead in her blood. And that was the issue.”

Manon wasn’t autistic, she’d been poisoned by lead which in large dosages can damage children’s IQ and cognitive development. Huw said: “She used to eat earth out in the garden. From what I’ve read it’s prevalent in areas where there are or have been railway sidings, and there were railway sidings not far from where we lived at the time.

“It’s difficult to draw any other conclusions because once we stopped the eating [of soil] she became better.”

Dr Ian Mudway, a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London believes we should be more concerned at the levels of toxic material in our environment, with lead a particularly concerning example.

He said: “Nothing is more of a forever chemical than lead. It’s one of the few chemical entities for which we can calculate a global burden of disease; half a million to just under a million premature deaths a year because of the release of lead into our environment. There is no safe level for lead in the human body. We need to increase public awareness that this is a hazard that has not gone away and still is a clear and present danger to the population.”

Warnings

Despite the risks to health, the programme discovered that council inspections have stalled, and at a time when there are increasing warnings on the impact of climate change.

Professor Mark Macklin of the University of Lincoln told the programme toxic material could be washing further afield.

He said: “We can’t forget about it – the contaminants are being re-mobilized. They’re being recycled as a consequence of climate change. 50 or 60 years ago, when we had less frequent floods, maybe we could have got away with it, but certainly not now.”

Professor Macklin also gave the BBC investigation exclusive access to his new research which suggests the challenge facing councils could be even wider than thought.

The team took soil samples near homes at one site in Denbighshire and found lead contamination levels six times above the threshold of what is considered safe. In response, the local authority admit it was not a high risk site they knew about, and said they would be carrying out further tests.

The Welsh Local Government Association said that checking of high risk sites was being undermined by lack of money, and is calling for a new, properly funded approach.

Britain’s Toxic Secret airs at 8:30pm on Thursday 13 March on BBC One Wales and will be available on iPlayer from midnight on 13 March