Talk:Hucknall

message: Regardless of who posted it, the Doff Portland entry reads more like a trade-advertisment presenting the company in glowing terms; so I will do my best to provide balance to this by offering a critique which cites as many historical references to the contrary as are stil lingering on the net. However since even recorded facts will be disputed by people with large amounts of money and power and since this is rather wordy, I'll keep it for background information only and possible future discussion so I will add it on the talk page and leave the Doff entry so they may glow in the full light of their "free publicity".
Many local Hucknall residents were less than happy that a large pesticide factory also warehousing chemicals such as  "agent orange" 2,4-D and which discharges decomposition product vapours from heating metaldehyde during slug-pellet production was allowed to be constructed less than 100 yards from two major housing estates. Nor is it fun for "Hucknallites" near the plant to need to keep windows firmly closed on hot days to avoid the stench emitted from their plant during the day or the noise from it's extractor fans at night. Doff has polluted Hucknall air for some years whilst shrugging off complaints and it continues to pollute the immediate environment near it's plant to this day. A visit to the vicinity of the plant on any warm/still day will reveal a memorable stench which smells like rotting bread or sour yeast. 
There was substantial controversy recorded in the local newspaper, the Hucknall Dispatch ( http://www.hucknalldispatch.co.uk )over many weeks in early Spring 2002 (e.g. Jan 11, Jan 25, Feb 1, Mar 1, Apr 12) where the story managed to gain the whole front page banner headline on April 12th so opposition can have hardly gone unnoticed. There was also opposition from residents to the new, and larger factory, particularly given the poor operational record at the Bolsover Street,  (Hucknall) plant with frequent complaints of fumes. The Hucknall Dispatch howevever, managed to "whitewash" the story with a "millions to one" risk claim which, at the time asserted or at least implied that it was quoting the final Ashfield District Council report. However this banner was splashed over the headlines days before the report was actually released and the core of it's contents were later discovered to have been primarily lifted from Fichtner, (consulting agents) or the slug-pellet plant manufacturer's own publicity material with no substantive mention of the council's Environmental Health department key concerns the report eventually referred to. These were published by the ADC afterwards and read by a more restricted audience of councillors and complainants. Effectively, the Dispatch stonewalled the story although they will obviously deny it.
Comments were made that should the plant ever catch fire, due to the variety of toxins warehoused at Doff's premises, the town would face a "mini-Bhopal". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_Disaster)
The Ashfield Council report from their Environmental Health Dept into the planning application expressed serious concerns over the health of local residents. Doff Portland had a history of polluting the air for local residents from it's former operational premises adjacent to Bolsover Street, Hucknall. This was due to poor plant and process control which resulted in, what were referred to euphemistically as, "temperature excursions" (loss of plant control). (The report may be available under FOI legislation from ADC, Urban Road, Kirkby in Ashfield).
The by-products of the slug-pellet manufacturing process require heating metaldehyde pellets to about 80C which drives off metaldehyde vapour along with unpleasant and malodorous fumes, decomposing into acetaldhyde vapour and other toxins. This chemical is currently listed by official bodies such as the NIH as a suspected carcinogen - dependent on dose and exposure periods. Ashfield District Council, have, to this date, followed no in-depth research or health-monitoring of local residents into the potential effects of the fumes being emitted or the levels of safe exposure. As with the Berridge Incinerators fiasco any future clusters of cancer deaths can be expected to be simply be "shugged off" as coincidence. 
Note: Acetaldehyde (metaldehyde) is believed to be safe in very low concentrations but where fumes can be detected by odour or above the human "odour threshold", this is an indication of higher dosage. Since plant operation is permanent, the exposure to local residents in close proximity is chronic not acute. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_%28medicine%29)
The more cynical observer would note that Doff chose to be heavy sponsors of the local football team and it is no surprise that the most vocal supporters of Doff Portland have also been keen supporters of Hucknall Town FC. (http://www.lusa.u-net.com/alt0304zm.htm - refs: extension to Hucknall Town FC's "Doff" stand)
Regarding the close relationship between Doff and Hucknall Town FC. More recently (2007) either "geographically" or as financial supporters they have been recently dragged into the perhiphery of a controversial scheme to close the current Hucknall Town ground built on a green field site and redevelop this stadium for housing at substantial profit. This involved building a new stadium (and a nightclub) on green-belt land reclaimed from the closed No. 1 colliery spoil heap immediately adjoining the Doff plant itself. This would effecively make Doff and the football team "next-door-neighbours". However, without a more in-depth investigation this appears as nothing more than a bizarre geographical coincidence coupled with a long-standing sponsorship arrangment. This arrangment enables the firm to keep it's image "clean" with local football-supporting residents and avoid anyone being tempted to look too closely at what the more unpleasant side of what they do for a living. 
The stadium scheme appears to have been an embarrassment to Ashfield District Council given widespread anger over their cavalier attiude to restrictive covenants preventing the development of a new town on recreation land gifted to the people of Hucknall in perpetuity. In that particular case Ashfield DC decided restrictive covenants on property didn't apply (to them at least) deciding this after they had already given the "green light" for a huge greenfield housing development which forms the basis of a new village between Hucknall and Papplewick. Declining an opportunity for the local Football team to climb into the next league by means of a larger stadium was probably one inadvertent consequences of local citzens protesting their actions over planning policy. (BBC Groundswell - Wigwam Warriors http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2006/06/15/groundswell_wigwam_lane_feature.shtml )
As far as acetaldehyde and Doff; critics argue that it is a toxin which chronic alcoholics and cigarette chain-smokers regularly expose themselves to and which may also be found naturally (but with natural antidotes). However the latest NIH report still classifies it as potentially hazardous dependent on dose and exposure - viz...
"Acetaldehyde is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals (IARC 1985, 1987, 1999)." - Substance Profiles - NIH 11th Report - http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/profiles/s001acet.pdf
During 2003 a spokesman for Doff claimed in documented responses to the Hucknall Dispatch that there was "absolutely no risk whatsoever" from the plant, metaldehyde or it's by-products. This was precisely the same type of blanket claim of absolute safety made by the operators of Hucknall's Berridge Incinerators in 1977 with cancer deaths following some 20-25 years later and long after the plant's closure. (BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/2513125.stm  - Tuesday, 26 November, 2002 - Inquiry into waste plant cancer claims). Given state and council sponsorship for Berridges it is not surprising that, to this day, no-one wants to talk about the plant.
Another "harmless" product from Doff Portland, Hucknall was one which contained Lindane - reputedly a chocolate additive in very low dosage - and was responsible for the death of 8 year-old Sharna Richardson, as documented on the Pesticide Action Network (PAN-UK) site - http://www.pan-uk.org/News/Press%20Release/lindeath.htm - however Doff again brushed off any controversy and only tightened EU laws on permissible pesticides have forced Doff away from continuing to manufacture or warehouse more toxic varieties of pesticide.
Doff are recorded as having supplied pesticides to: B&Q, Homebase, Great Mills, Wilko's, Woolworths, Do-it-all and ASDA and possibly more companies (example: 2,4-D, dichlorprop herbicide - possibly now withdrawn from UK sale - example item Nos. M07539,M06897)
The installation of such environmentally-polluting companies in close-proximity to residential areas adds to a long-standing local feeling that, as a sub-district of Sutton-in-Ashfield, Hucknall is the "poor-relation" and dumping ground for dirty and polluting businesses not wanted elswhere in the area. Indeed there was ample space for a new Doff plant at Annesley Park but this is filled with "blue chip" companies who would clearly would not tolerate this nuisance. Such views relating to Ashfield DC have been regularly recorded over time in the letters page of the Hucknall Dispatch. 
Since the late 1970s there has been planning controversy, relating in particular to the polluting Berridge Incinerators toxic waste plant, it's cluster of deaths as reported by BBC news and abortive plans by Ashfield District Council attempts to create a large household waste landfill site in close proximity to another major housing estate to the west of Ruffs Estate bordering the M1 motorway. 
Reference links:
Note: Much of this information is available but only in paper form and in printed/microfilmed newspaper archives.
Historical references and reference copies of the Hucknall Dispatch whereby much of the non "net-documented" background to controversy over Doff Portland may either be available online (unlikely) or via Hucknall Library or via their offices at York Street, Hucknall. 
Lindane and chocolate: http://www.panna.org/resources/gpc/gpc_200108.11.2.19.dv.html
Complaints were also lodged in 2003 with both Friends of the Earth (East Midlands) and with PAN-UK (Pesticides Action Network) http://www.pan-uk.org/ - both of whom should retain some docuementary evidence of local residents' complaints. These complaints being raised in 2003 when the plant applied for change of use planning permission to convert their newly-built £4 million "warehousing complex" into an operational pesticide production factory.
A useful link for historical cross-checking is: ADC Search Planning Applications database from 1974 http://www.ashfield-dc.gov.uk/cfusion/planning/plan_findfile.cfm
86.6.60.72 02:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Doff Portland - By Way of Balance

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