news

18 families are suing Corby Borough Council, claiming deformities to hands and feet were due to mothers being exposed to a ‘soup of toxic materials’ during council led reclamation works at a former steel plant between 1985 and 1999.
 
The council denies any negligence and insists there is no link between the clean-up and any defects.  

In evidence given at London’s High Court mothers have told the court how they either lived in or regularly visited Corby while pregnant and that during that time
the town seemed ‘dusty’ or ‘dirty’.  One expert witness told court that an ‘atmospheric soup of toxic materials’ had hung over Corby during the reclamation works.

The borough council’s own expert witnesses were adamant that the clear-up was carried out safely and thoroughly and denied any link to the deformities.
 
The council’s chief executive Chris Mallender has said: ‘For the past five years we have thoroughly investigated every aspect of the claims they are making and we know that there is no link between the reclamation work that was carried out in Corby, over a period of 20 years, and these children's birth defects.

‘Epidemiological data will demonstrate that there is no cluster of cases and that the numbers of children with such deformities is 'normal' for the population.’
 
The judge, who visited the site during the hearing, is due to rule on whether the council owed a duty of care to the claimants during the clean-up operation and, if so, whether airborne pollutants could cause the defects and if that was foreseeable.