Aston Down Action Group call on Stroud District Council and Health Protection Agency to review possible radiation contamination at Aston Down Business Park in Stroud, Gloucestershire
CAMPAIGNERS have raised fears about radiation contamination at an old airfield site where a recycling business is seeking retrospective planning permission.
The Aston Down Action Group in Stroud has objected to the skip hire and waste facility continuing at the Aston Down Business Park in Minchinhampton.
Group spokeswoman Sally Morgan said the firm's operations would have "an adverse impact on the landscape setting".
Aston Down is within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
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But Ms Morgan also said the group felt there was an ongoing issue of possible alpha and beta radioactive contamination at Aston Down.
She claimed radioactive material had been stored at Aston Down from nuclear tests in the 1960s, and she is calling on the Stroud District Council local planning and environmental health authority to investigate.
But a spokesman for Aston Down's owners, Leda Properties, said alpha and beta surveys were, in fact, undertaken in 1990.
"The results proved that there was no residual contamination in the buildings from the test materials," he said.
The reports had been passed to the council for it to review them.
"We are supportive of the approach of the council in seeking the Health Protection Agency to review all the reports to date," he said.
A council spokesman confirmed that when the airfield was decommissioned, tests were also carried out for gamma radiation by the Ministry of Defence.
The local Minchinhampton Parish Council has also objected to the recycling skips.
Its chairman Councillor Nick Hurst said this was because the submitted plan was flawed and had not shown a limit to the outside area where the skips might be stored.
The Health Protection Agency said it was discussing arrangements for a review of previous radiological surveys with Stroud District Council. The agency said it did not currently have any information about the site.
Comments
by AntiWinsor
Sunday, February 17 2013, 10:44AM
“Is there any documentation relating to the disposal of the radioactive materials? Mannequins from the Christmas Island tests have been mentioned. Where are they now?
A witness told me a tanker load of black liquid was poured onto one of the landfills in the vicinity of the Nympsfield wind turbine. Allegedly the owner arrived and the workers were sent home early. Two teenagers were allowed to stay and one of them witnessed "the biggest roll of banknotes I've ever seen" change hands followed by the liquid being poured out of the tanker.
In the early 80's my brother-in-law found documents from a local nuclear power station on another of the landfills in that area. He thought his parents would be concerned but he was just told to get rid of the documents. When testholes were drilled into that landfill the drill bit became too hot to handle. I was there, the drillers asked me for water to cool the bit. They seemed surprised, it wasn't something they were prepared for. There are stories of a JCB operator being injured by an explosion while digging into that landfill.
It is beyond doubt that dangerous substances have been illicitly disposed of in landfills in this area. Personally I wouldn't drink spring water from the valley below Nympsfield Road/Tinkley Lane.”