Rainham-One Of The Most Deprived Areas Of London Routinely Regarded As A Landfill Dumping Ground And Gravel Extraction Site: But What About Its Forgotten People?

On Wednesday 12 May, local campaigner and activist Ruth Kettle-Frisby took to the streets pf London to attend a special summit where she was invited to to give a speech about the nightmare that is Launders Lane.

Ruth, who is rightly passionate in her bid that everyone has the right to clean air, joined a summit being held in parliament on Zane’s Law. She had the ability to meet Zane’s parents and share Havering’s ongoing health concerns and worries over the fires on Launders Lane.

Ruth, works closely with residents living in Rainham who suffer the consequences of the toxic landfill fires and have begged and urged all parties involved to please resolve this issue urgently as another summer of fires sets in.

Residents living in the area are all too familiar with having to close windows, not being able to go outside, suffer choking fumes and wear masks inside their own homes. But now, serious health issues have been flagged up such as COPD, and different forms of cancer.

Ruth gave a passionate and insightful speech on the reality of Launders Lane.

Please see her speech below:

On the edge of the overlooked outer London borough of Havering is the beautiful yet forgotten historic village of Rainham. 

In social, cultural, and historic terms, Rainham is a hive of thriving local art and warm tight-knit community spirit. Rainham is home to gorgeous Grade II listed buildings, such as Wennington Church and Rainham Hall – both teaming with life – and of course a rich array of wetland wildlife in Rainham Marshes, an unmatched site of special scientific interest and outstanding natural beauty.

And in socio-political terms? Well, it’s one of the most deprived areas of London, and is routinely regarded by those with power as little more than a dumping ground for landfill, and gravel extraction site for building quarries.

Rainham’s rich cultural historic identity is rapidly being displaced by that of a condensed source of rife contamination for private revenue; its residents – some of the most vibrant and creative people I’ve ever met – ignored; the inherent value of their physical and mental health, wellbeing – and indeed their lives – dismissed as completely expendable.

Privately owned Arnolds Field on the now infamous Launders Lane, is the site of a vast illegal landfill, presenting as a grotesque and foreboding landscape of uneven hills that smoulder underground all year, causing widespread anxiety and exacerbating health conditions among residents, including young children.

This undulating monstrosity bursts into flames every summer, causing noxious fumes that permeate children’s playgrounds, schools and homes via great plumes of thick black smoke containing harmful PM2.5 – which causes respiratory and cardiovascular disease – and goodness knows what other dangerous chemicals that are being carried as potentially deadly chemical cargo. 

That’s just it. Nobody knows! In spite of sporadic soil testing, this extensive illegal dump remains largely an unknown entity. As such, its significant risk to human health remains uninvestigated and unquantified, with very little in the way of accountability, despite the manifest danger the smoke is causing to residents: invisible children dwell behind closed doors and windows as their parents and carers desperately try their best to mitigate the revolting smells, nosebleeds, extreme throat irritation and relentless coughing in this ongoing unsustainable, and of course completely unjust situation. 

Residents report waking up in the night with burning sensations in their throat and vomiting when the smoke is at its worst; and children, especially those with existing health conditions including cancer, are suffering disproportionately. There’s very little the local London Fire Brigade can do, and yet they’re called again and again to the site, subjecting their health, safety and lives to unreasonable levels of risk each time. 

Unpoisoned air and water constitute the most basic human needs there are, and yet up and down the country, many of us have no idea how close we live to Landfills containing and emitting harmful chemicals via air and water. On behalf of forgotten children in Rainham and beyond, a statutory duty of candour must be upheld; currently the right to freedom from deadly contamination is the preserve of the privileged, not the human right that it should be for all children. 

The primary role of government is to protect citizens from harm, and amidst this widespread contamination emergency, Local Authorities and the Environment Agency must be systemically and accessibly held to account for the sake of justice. The injustice children are suffering is a function of the flimsiness of the regulations that systematically obscure the truth, and obfuscate justice, and this widespread injustice must be urgently redressed in law. 

Children in Zane Gbangbola’s memory are depending on you for Zane’s Law. 

Little lives have tragically already been lost, and the time to act for the human right to a clean environment is overdue. 

So it is with heartfelt urgency that I call on you to act in unambiguous solidarity with Nicole and Kye in the memory of their most loved and precious son, Zane Gbangbola.

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