Fortunately, Camilla Horrox at the K&C Chronicle decided to cover this story, and she got a statement of sorts from the Council. You can read her piece here.
The Council statement said only that:
“Asbestos was found in the old depot attached to the leisure centre. It has now been tested and safely removed by specialist contractors.”
As we all know, the depot is the last bit of structure still standing on the leisure centre site. It occupies just a small corner of the site, the rest of which (probably four fifths of the site) has been completely and utterly trashed and totally flattened. There is also a great mountain of pulverised rubble remaining, just behind the depot, from which dust is constantly blown around the neighbourhood.
What we still don’t understand is this:
If the asbestos contamination was confined to the interior of the depot, and posed no risk to the public, or to workers in the surrounding area, then why was it deemed necessary to stop all work on the whole site for a full week, at considerable expense?
Local residents are entitled to full and detailed information about this incident, not just vague and evasive comments from Leadbitters, and one-liners from the Council. We don’t trust either of these to tell the truth, and we are pretty sure that no-one else in this community trusts them either.
PS – Ms Horrox also wrote a piece last week on the travails of the long suffering residents of Grenfell Tower. Check it out here.