- Conference
- 2024 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 14 February 2024
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that current UK regulations with regard to toxic waste disposal and the danger to human life, to our environment and to the planet as a whole, from both historic landfill sites and currently approved landfill sites operating the ‘dry tomb’ principle, are dangerously inadequate. Especially so, in the face of climate breakdown, with rising sea levels, increased rainfall, and flooding.
Over the last 30 years, successive UK governments have watered down European legislation on contaminated land to favour politically connected land-owning and developer lobbies over their responsibility to the environment and to life on Planet Earth.
At the 51st regular session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (Sept/Oct 2022), a proposal to enact a human right to a clean environment was tabled for discussion, to include a mandate for strong action on contaminated land. Only the UK and the USA declined to sign up to this vitally important measure.
In 2014, seven year old Zane Gbangbola died, and his father was paralysed with a diagnosis of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) poisoning, during catastrophic flooding in the UK. Flood water passing through a historic landfill site, known to the authorities to contain toxic gasses, carried Hydrogen Cyanide gas into Zane’s home, detected at high levels by the Fire and Rescue Services and Specialist HAZMAT teams. The storms that resulted in flooding across the country were the first stated by a UK Prime Minister as being caused by Climate Change.
Following an emergency COBRA meeting, held on the day Zane died, David Cameron’s government deliberately spun this tragic event as a ‘carbon monoxide poisoning’ to cover up the facts known at the time. This ‘official’ version would be the determination of Zane’s long delayed Inquest, at which no information held by public agencies about multiple, local, contaminated landfill sites was deemed worthy of consideration by the Coroner. An Inquest that further stripped Zane of his Human Rights Act (HRA) rights under Article 2, removing rights of investigation into his death. Zane was denied a Jury, and Legal Aid for legal representation was also denied, witnesses and evidence were also denied. The BBC TV News further exposed Hydrogen Cyanide was detected multiple times, there was no carbon monoxide, and there was ‘political pressure’ to determine carbon monoxide; the BBC referenced Public Health England FOI’s which further highlighted that the local hospital was overwhelmed with unwell people.
‘Zane’s Law’ proposes measures to begin to address the crisis of contaminated land in the UK. Publicly launched at COP26 by Zane’s parents and Natalie Bennett at a Truth and Justice event, hosted by Jeremy Corbyn, Natalie has since been promoting ‘Zane’s Law’ in the House of Lords.
British TV and Media are increasingly reporting communities injured by living in proximity to landfill, this is a ticking time bomb international communities are addressing. Just this year, ten years since Zane’s death, the family’s house was once again flooded with overspill water from the unregulated landfill site behind their home.
Conference fully supports the Truth About Zane Campaign’s call for ‘Zane’s Law’ which, in line with the Environment Act 2010, would require:
1)That every local authority must keep a full, regularly updated register of land that may be contaminated;
2)That these registers of land be accessible and available for inspection by the general public;
3)That local authorities be responsible for fully inspecting any land registered that may be contaminated and remediating it if necessary;
4)That local authorities be responsible for inspecting previously closed landfill sites and remediating them if necessary;
5)That the government take responsibility for providing the necessary funds for Local Authorities to meet these new requirements.
We call on the National Executive Council to:
a)Consider awarding Zane’s parents honorary life membership of UNISON;
b)Affiliate to the Truth About Zane campaign;
c)Publicly support the call for an independent panel inquiry into the death of Zane Gbangbola;
d)Publicly support the call for Zane’s Law to be adopted into statute.