Wealdstone Brook at the height of the pollution incident
Dear Editor,
Yesterday – Wednesday 22nd June 2022 – the area around Beckton Sewage Works in NE London has been declared a ‘Major Incident’ because the Polio virus has been detected in the local river water. LINK
Raw sewage in the Woodcock Park section of the Wealdstone Brook persisted through to May.
If it turns out that water samples were also taken from the Wealdstone Brook (and they should have been given the information now released from the Environment Agency as of yesterday) then Brent Council were negligent to say the least in not declaring the human sewage pollution of the Wealdstone Brook a ‘Major Incident’ as requested by me.
If there were no medical tests of the water for such viruses, then I would regard that a major dereliction of duty from Brent and Harrow Council and the local medical authorities, particularly since we had a zoom meeting with a health official in the Brent and Harrow area regarding just this issue. The water of the Brook was not only chemically toxic and dangerous to human health – it would also certainly contain some potentially very serious viruses and was therefore biologically toxic.
How dare they play games with our health let alone the health of children who continued to play in and around this river as it runs through Woodcock Park and no action was taken by the authorities to fence off this river in spite of repeated requests on health and safety grounds from the Friends of Woodcock Park.
I am angry, very angry – ignorance is no excuse for the failure to protect the health of residents of Kenton, particularly those that live close to the Wealdstone Brook.
John Poole, co-founder of Brook Way Community Diversity Project CIC and member of North West London Rivers Alliance
