Contractors to return for second clean-up after asbestos waste left strewn across Derbyshire lane

Derbyshire County Council (DCC) closed part of Bullock Lane, in Riddings, on Sunday, September 5, after piles of hazardous industrial waste were dumped on the rural road.

They notified Amber Valley Borough Council (AVBC), the authority responsible for fly-tipping and street cleansing in the area, on Monday and a clean-up operation was launched.

But despite contractors completing the work yesterday (Thursday, September 9), one Bullock Lane resident said there are still bits of white absestos “in plain sight”.

He said: “The specialist team consisted of a man in a van with a Henry Hoover, paper suit and mask! Once they had left I went to my front gate and saw there were bits of asbestos still on the highway in front of my property.

"The pieces were in plain sight so it would be more than reasonable to assume that nearer the places the asbestos was actually deposited on the highway (not directly in front of my property), then dispersed by traffic, there must still be many pieces residing in the hedge bottoms as the vegetation there has not been disturbed during the ‘clean up’.

"If it were not bad enough that asbestos dust has been in the atmosphere for 96 hours, there are pieces still on the road getting ground up to dust which will naturally be dispersed in the breeze, prolonging the already unacceptable health risk.

"This so called ‘clean up’ has been no more than cosmetic, with a blatant disregard to public health and welfare.”

A spokesperson for AVBC said that motorists driving through the road closure had contributed to the distribution of the waste.

They said: “As soon as the Council became aware of the situation, it made arrangements for a specialist contractor, who uses the appropriate safety equipment to attend the site as soon as possible. In the meantime DCC arranged for a road closure to protect public safety.

"On Thursday afternoon we received a complaint that a small amount of the waste has been spread further along the road by vehicles driving through the closure.

"We’ve therefore asked the contractor to return to site and seek to remove any remaining small pieces of debris that they can find.”

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