Corby Borough Council has become the first authority to be found liable for negligence in remediation, breach of statutory duty and public nuisance, following its remediation of a former steelworks site, which released contaminated dust which "could realistically have caused" children to be born with defects.
The presiding judge Mr Justice Akenhead ruled that, with the exception of two of the children, the birth defects of the 18 children were seemingly caused by their mothers ingesting contaminated dust particles when pregnant, which he said dispersed across the whole of Corby and areas within 4kms of the council-owned site.
However he added that individuals will still need to establish that each of their conditions was caused by the negligence, in order for them to seek financial compensation.
Announcing the judgement in the High Court's Technology and Construction Court in central London, Mr Akenhead said the Council "bit off more than it could chew and did not really appreciate the enormity, ramifications and difficulty of what it was setting out to achieve in terms of removing and depositing very substantial quantities of contaminated material" when it bought the 275ha heavily contaminated former British Steel Corporation land.
He ruled that the Council breached its duty to take reasonable care to prevent contaminated mud and dust from spreading, under the Environmental Protection Act. Millions of tons of toxic materials containing cadmium, chromium IV, nickel, dioxins and PAHs were carried from the site in unsheeted lorries, affecting residents and regular visitors in the area between 1985 and 1997.
The council still denies that there is a link between the remediation work and the birth defects, but said it recognises that mistakes were made and that these need to be considered.
Toxicology reports found there were contaminants present, while foetal medicine found that these could possibly have caused birth defects, Mr Akenhead said. These expert findings, together with the cluster of birth defects between 1985 and 1999 in the area affected, led him to rule that the Council was negligent.
In contrast, the judge was less convinced by the evidence presented by the council's experts. In the judgement he noted that the families' waste management expert, Roger Braithwaite "was obviously appalled at the way in which CBC conducted itself... As is clear from this judgement, he was right to be appalled."
Mr Akenhead also found former council employees lacked the experience and expertise to take on such a huge remediation project. He suggested that the council's primary motive was to develop and resell the land quickly, without considering the consequences for residents and visitors.
"Prior to the trial the Council maintained that a thorough investigation had led it to the conclusion that there was no link between the reclamation work and the children's birth defects," said Des Collins of Collins Solicitors, who represented the families affected. "Today that link has been established".
However the ruling didn't cover the two youngest children, who were born after 1997, one of whom suffers from Ehler Danlos Syndrome which Mr Akenhead found could not be proven to have arisen because of the contamination. The other children have physical disabilities such as missing or underdeveloped fingers or deformed feet.
Corby Borough Council chief executive Chris Mallender said it was disappointed and surprised at the outcome. "We recognise mistakes were made and we accept some of the criticism levelled at the council but we have still not seen any evidence to confirm a causal link between the works carried out and the birth defects identified," he said, adding that "now is not the time for a knee-jerk reaction."
He explained that the Council will be reading the 400-odd page judgement over the next few days, to decide what to do next.
