It’s a pity that when Mrs Spicely refers to the contamination and flooding at Redcliffe homes development site at Brooklands, Chippenham, (September 25) that her comments relate to knowledge of the area within such a limited timeframe.
While she claims that her father had “the bungalow” built following purchase of land in Rowden Lane, records show that this was not until January 1945. Could the County record archives, detailing that flooding in the area in which these new homes are now being built was so serious in 1944 that it reached the nearby Bath road viaduct railway bridge, adjacent to Patterdown, be the reason why the bungalow was built as far away from the Ladyfield brook as possible, on the highest part of land?
When she refers to the toxins in the development land, she is correct when she states that the land had been used for agriculture, but County archive records indicate that the land had previous industrial use in which dangerous chemicals may have been used, and also formerly ‘the brick yard’. She misses the point that Wessex Water’s report clearly identifies the nearby railway as a source of contamination.
I can’t help wondering if the contamination of this land played a part in the fact that my late father was diagnosed with cancer, from a then unknown source, eight years after commencing work on the land upon which Redcliffe homes are now building, and I am also aware that Mrs Spicely’s own father passed away at a young age, within a similar time frame of working the same land.
Given that the contamination reports commissioned by Redcliffe Homes, which should have been carried out before planning approval, not five years after, identify carcinogenic, high levels of arsenic, cyanide, lead, and cancer causing radon identified in a plan, make it clear that these toxins can be absorbed through the skin or breathed in by anyone on the land or within the new homes, the public are entitled to make choices based on factual information.
MP James Gray has always opposed development of this land, so I would like to ask for his views regarding the revelations.
R. Ayres Brookfields Rowden Lane Chippenham
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