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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. Simon Danzcuk, the Rochdale Labour Party parliamentary candidate, has warned that the council believe a housing development on the site is an inevitability and 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."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Save Spodden Valley )〕 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 April 2014, 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 (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."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lucy Deane, Lady Inspector of Factories )〕 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Confidential Document )〕 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.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spodden Valley asbestos controversy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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