Over 50 years after toxic waste was dumped in Alvanley Commonside Tip, regulators have persistently failed to clean up this site, endangering the public and the environment.

A sample taken in 2024 from a path by a stream in the village of Alvanley showed highly toxic chemicals, Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), were present at 1,000 times higher than normal.

This site has been on the radar of the Council for decades. Despite testing showing that harmful levels of chemicals were leaching out of the site and into the local environment past and present Councils have failed to designate it as contaminated land and to carry out the necessary remedial measures to protect animals, ecosystems and ultimately humans.

We are looking to raise £10,000 to carry out further tests and to write to the Council to demand the land is classified as ‘contaminated land’, which would force them to take the necessary remedial action to clean up this site for good.

And it’s not just Alvalney… We hope to use any success here to prompt action elsewhere so that we can clean up this toxic chemical legacy across the whole of the UK.

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Thank you for your support!

About us

We are a group of people who for the past 5 years have been investigating the toxic waste left behind by the UK chemical manufacturing industry, often dumped in old quarries and valleys around the UK. This waste includes harmful and cancer-causing chemicals, including a group of persistent and highly neurotoxic called PCBs.

Also known as a type of “forever chemical”, PCB production was banned in the UK in the 1980s because of the high risks posed to animals and the natural environment. Because PCBs do not breakdown, they continue to pose a serious environmental threat for decades. In particular, PCBs are a major threat to species that feed at the top of the food chain such as orcas, dolphins, porpoises, otters and herons, as well as humans. They are known to cause cancer in animals as well as damage to the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems. They also have the potential to be carcinogenic in humans.

Background on the Alvanley Site

The body of evidence that action was needed to prevent PCBs has leaking is considerable and goes back to the 1970s:

1978 - the National Rivers Authority (NRA) report formally on the problem and a recommendation is made that Frodsham Marsh should be tested for PCB pollution.

1992 - NRA report “Significant levels of PCBs have been found to be present below the point of discharge in the local watercourse”

1992 - the site is described in a letter from the then Environment Minister, Michael Howard, to local MP, Sir Robert Goodlad, as a “nationally recognised problem”.

2001 - a study published in 2001 estimated that at least 300,000m³ of industrial waste was dumped there between 1950 and 1971, including paints, solvents, capacitors and PCB contaminated transformer oils. The study suggests the waste was capped with just a layer of soil, which contributed to the dispersal of PCBs beyond the site boundaries, and that leachate and surface drainage amalgamates to pass eventually into the Mersey Estuary.

2009 - The Council’s own testing resulted in a determination in 2009 that the land was not contaminated land, despite tests reportedly showing high levels of PCBs in stream sediments and the sump close to the tip. Instead, the Council’s consultants were employed to remove PCB-contaminated sediments from a short stretch of the stream.

Since July 2022 - we have been asking why Commonside Tip is not classified as Contaminated Land and have received no satisfactory response.

2024 – The BBC Radio 4 Buried series, supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry, carried out testing across the UK with the assistance of Dr David Megson of the Manchester Metropolitan University. The test result from Alvanley showed PCBs were 1,000 times higher than normal national levels.

2024 – As a result of questions being raised, the Council have set up a new webpage, which states that consultants were commissioned to carry out sampling in spring 2024 and that the Council has written to the Environment Agency for advice.

After more than 50 years of delay and inaction, we don’t think this is enough.