Councillor Duffy has responded to Brent Council's replies to his questions about the asbestos contamination at Paddington Cemetery with this email to Carolyn Downs, Brent Council Chief Executive:
Thank you
for letter you asked Mr Whyte to send on your behalf. I will study it and deal
with the questions around the events of 24th June and 30th November and
contamination in general in a second reply as I need to get more
information. However this reply will focus on how the waste got to Paddington
Cemetery, which is the most crucial issue. Firstly I am delighted you have
said "I can confirm that the AAC report was initially restricted
for its consideration by the Committee in December. it has been publicly
available on the council’s website since the last Audit Advisory Committee on
the 10th January. I believe your decision to lift the
restriction is a good decision for democracy and will allow an open debate
around the report
As you
know, until you published it, I was bound by the council standing orders not to
reveal what was in the report. This was most frustrating as the report is
flawed and omits crucial evidence. Only in Brent would a report that does
not interview witnesses be acceptable. The report not only fails to interview
anybody who witnessed the transportation from Carpenter Park to Paddington
Cemetery (as they may tell a different story), it relies completely on what
Senior Brent council officers say is true and does not seek relevant documentation.
As you
know my allegations have always been the same since November 2017:
(1) The
council knowingly/deliberate transported contaminated waste from Carpenters
Park, putting the workforce and the public at unnecessary risk.
The
report points out there were two known incidences of contamination in
Paddington Cemetery.
The first
one took place in 2011, where the council received supposedly top-soil from a
waste contractor. A council officer called Mr A dealt directly with the
contractor named as company XX. He did not seek additional quotations as the
contractor XX (this is normal for Brent not to seek best value) had previously
carried out work in Willesden New Cemetery. Instead, Mr A met the contractor on
site and agreed a price and raised a work order from the contractor to
supply" Clean Top soil."
While Mr
A was off sick a Senior manager Mr F (rightly) challenged the workmanship of
company XX and informed Mr A on his return to work that the company should not
be used again. Mr F is now retired. Mr A however said the clay/soil was, he
understood, to have been tested and no contamination was found. Bizarrely
the investigating officer did not ask the name of the company who tested it or
ask see a copy of the test results.
The
second incident took place in Carpenders Park in August 2015, The work was
being carried out by different contractor YY to carry out levelling work in
section 3d in Paddington cemetery. Mr A was alerted to contaminated soil
again .Mr A believed it to be (guessed it to be) "Asbestos
cement", which he described as low risk. He removed some of the
"Asbestos Cement" and double bagged it and disposed of it to
landfill and obtained a waste transfer certificate and the remaining
waste still contaminated with asbestos fibres was transported to
Paddington Old cemetery without a test being carried out to assert the level of
contamination still within the soil this confirms the council knowingly
transferred waste to Paddington Cemetery knowing it to be contaminated.
This is all confirmed at the bottom of page 6 and top of page 7 of the AAC
report.
I assume
the waste was then taken to the West London Waste Authority (WLWA) Site on
Abbey road NW10 as we are a member of that waste authority. WLWA are
required to keep Waste Transfer notes for a minimum of 2 years. So it is very
likely they will still have copies and that information would be a basic
requirement to any investigation Date, Weight, description but this obvious
avenue was yet again not pursued by the investigator.
However the
most bizarre thing I have ever seen in a report and after
nearly forty years experience, I am still not sure I believe what i read. It
was the statement from the investigating officer saying "Although dealing
with contaminated land falls within the remit of the ( the council's)
environment monitoring team they stated they would NOT pursue
a criminal investigation against the the contractor should evidence of an
offence under the Environmental Protection Act come to light." This is the
Environmental team telling the investigator and the committee, whatever he then
finds, it does not matter because environmental officers will not
pursue it.
As I say,
I welcome your decision to remove the restriction on the ACC Report and i hope
it get a full airing at the public meeting, however I believe the publishing of
the AAC report makes an Independent public investigation carried out by a
Health and Safety expert( to reassure the public) inevitable. I believe the
idea that issues in the public interest can be dealt with by a restricted
special committee where the council mark their own homework and give themselves
an A+ has to be challenged
I have
only one question: Are you happy that the investigating officer did not
seek relevant available documents and failed to interview key witness involved
in the transportation of the asbestos contaminated waste to Paddington
cemetery
An early
reply will be much appreciated. I will also get back to you on the other two
points later in the week. Namely,
(2) That
the council knowingly instructed the workforce to work in the contaminated
ground in full knowledge that it was contaminated with Asbestos
(3)
That the council knowingly did not follow proper H+S regulations on the
24th of June and 30th of November.
