Stop the Fires & Clean up the Site at Launders Lane – the Toxic Illegal Landfill

should be Designated Contaminated Land!

We are Clear the Air Havering, a local environmental group founded by three local mums, and we are seeking funds to challenge the council's lack of action over an illegal landfill site at Launders Lane, in Havering, which is affecting air quality and local resident's lives.

The problem of Launders Lane 

Constantly smouldering underground fires coming from the illegal landfill at Launders Lane in Rainham steadily pollute the air all year round. During the summertime the site regularly catches fire presenting significant unquantified, unprotected health and safety risks both to firefighters who are unable to access the fires, as well as residents as great plumes of toxic black smoke suffocate the sky. This already 20 year long public health crisis can no longer be allowed to continue.

Rainham is one of the most deprived areas of London and nothing has been done to stop the fires and to protect the by now desperate Rainham residents from harm. Rainham residents describe themselves as ‘the forgotten people of Havering’; their lives wilfully put at risk, paying for negligence with their lives. They have reported not wanting to go outside at all, struggling to breathe getting to the park (and having to come back again), that all windows have to be closed, children waking up in the night feeling that their throat is on fire, mothers waking up in terror thinking that their house is burning down, patients recovering from cancer struggling to breathe, parents of children with asthma constantly being on high alert. This is just not acceptable on any level. 

The site is also classified as one of the highest-emitting methane sites in the UK. Methane can result in poor air quality by contributing to the formation of ground level ozone and particulate pollution. Exposure to ozone and particulate pollution damages airways, aggravates lung diseases, causes asthma attacks, increases rates of preterm birth, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and heightens stroke risk. 

The Council Decision

Havering Council have decided not to designate the landfill as contaminated land. When councils make these decisions they are obliged by law to take certain things into account, including whether the site causes or is likely to cause significant harm to health. Our lawyers confirm that we have strong grounds to argue that this decision was made without taking into account the relevant factors: the council have failed to apply the Contaminated Land Statutory Guidance properly, have not adopted a structured approach to risk assessment, relied on flawed air pollution data and inconclusive evidence in relation to groundwater contamination, and have failed to adequately consider the impact the site has on the physical and mental health of local residents (which an expert report commissioned by the council suggested were "significant").

Please support us!

We are asking for your support for our proposed application for a court review of the council's recent decision. If the landfill is legally designated to be contaminated land, then the council and the Environment Agency will have specific legal duties to ensure the site is cleaned up. They will be required to serve a notice on the person responsible requiring them to remediate the land. Most importantly, if the relevant person can't or won't clean up the land, the council can step in and clean up the land themselves, and recoup as much of its costs as it can afterwards. It can also prosecute or commence civil proceedings against the person responsible – including holding company directors personally liable.

If the Site remains not designated as contaminated land, the council and the landowner can continue to blame each other and take no responsibility or action. The council has been trying to get the landowner to clear it up for the last 20 years – this is not working!

The residents have tried tirelessly to resolve this issue with the council and landowner to no avail. It is a last resort to seek action through the courts, but something has to be done to stop the fires. Our claim, if successful, will mean the council has to remake their decision, this time with the right information and with a proper and full assessment of the health and safety of the residents at the centre of their thinking, as required by the Contaminated Land Statutory Guidance. The residents of Rainham are owed a proper decision making process from the council, which takes into account the impact this site has on local health.

Our lawyers have written a pre-action letter to the council to explain our potential claim and to give them the opportunity to correct their decision making. This letter is has been sent on behalf of Ruth and Clear the Air in Havering and is available to view here , and some further information about us, the site, and the reasons we want to bring this claim are available on Clear the Air in Havering FB 

The funding we need

We urgently need your help to raise an initial £16,500 to cover potential adverse costs* and court fees on behalf of Clear the Air in Havering and Ruth as potential claimants. We will then need additional funds to contribute to our lawyers' (Mishcon de Reya LLP and David Wolfe KC) fees. We have set our initial stretch target for the fees at £50,000, but we ideally need to raise around £150,000, which we intend to raise in stages. Both Mishcon de Reya and David Wolfe KC are acting on a significantly reduced fee basis in order to act as our legal representatives advising us in this claim and ensuring it is brought within the relevant limitation period, but we still need to pay them for their work.

*In litigation in the UK, the rule is that the loser pays the winner's costs. In claims such as these, such a rule is considered prohibitive to the bringing of claims at all because, as is the case here and in so many other cases, those affected by environmental injustice are often not the wealthiest in society. Accordingly, our lawyers intend to apply to the court for capped adverse costs under a regime called the Aarhus Convention. The maximum amount of costs which could then be ordered against us if we lose would be £10,000 for Clean the Air Havering and £5,000 for Ruth as an individual.