Posted on Thursday 29th July 2021
Officers will be available to answer questions regarding action at Walleys Quarry and talk about health issues arising from it.
Residents can put their latest questions to the agencies tackling the problems caused by Walleys Quarry.
Senior officers from the Environment Agency, Public Health England, Staffordshire County Council and Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council will be available for 90 minutes, as well as a representative from the North Staffordshire CCG, which represents GPs in the area.
The online meeting will take place on Tuesday, 3 August, between 5.30 and 7pm and residents will be able to submit questions in advance, or on the night.
Since the previous meeting on 6 July, the Environment Agency has overseen further remedial work by the operators of the Walleys Quarry landfill site, the Borough Council has set aside £1 million to pursue legal action if necessary, and Staffordshire County Council’s Health and Care Scrutiny Committee is writing to the Prime Minister emphasising its concern about the increasing threat to residents’ physical and mental wellbeing from long-term, low-level exposure to hydrogen sulphide.
Residents at the meeting will hear short briefings from those involved about the latest situation regarding actions taken and then most of the meeting will be given over to the question and answer session.
While partners have been working collaboratively since March to tackle the impact of the operations at Walleys Quarry, due to concerns about how long this situation might continue to affect residents, a Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG) of Staffordshire Resilience Forum agencies has now been established. This is being chaired by Assistant Chief Constable Simon Tweats from Staffordshire Police.
A report from Public Health England (PHE) Midlands, on air quality monitoring in the vicinity of the quarry from March to May, concluded that hydrogen sulphide levels were above the World Health Organisation (WHO) annoyance guideline for between 7 per cent - 36 per cent of the time. The full report can be found here .
While the assessment remains that the long-term risk to health is likely to be small, public health partners are increasingly concerned that if hydrogen sulphide emissions continue at the levels seen up until May, the risk to health from pollutants in the area cannot be completely ruled out. People continue to report symptoms daily, with negative impacts on both physical and mental wellbeing.
The virtual meeting is being hosted on the Zoom platform. People can access it by PC, laptop, tablet or smart phone. Click here to join Walleys Quarry community event automatically, or join the event manually by opening up Zoom (click here) in the device browser and entering the following details: Meeting ID: 996 6909 8093 and Passcode: 940976.
Please send all questions (directed at any of the host organisations) for the 3rd August Walleys Quarry engagement event through to the following email address. Please include the following text within the email title, which will flag it for the event team: Walleys Quarry engagement event. Enquiries_Westmids@environment-agency.gov.uk .