Councillor Gillian Ford, Deputy Leader of Havering Council, statement:
We are pleased that we have finally received the judicial review outcome as awaiting the ruling had delayed any further action or progress on getting the smoke stopped.
We are now reviewing the detail in the ruling.
One thing that is clear is it has asked us to reconsider our decision on whether Arnolds Field (Launders Lane) is “contaminated land” or not.
However, last year, we had already said that we would make a new decision on the Part 2A Contaminated Land determination when any new information was available and work is already well underway to progress this.
We will also take any learnings from this ruling and apply those to that decision.
What won’t change is that we will continue to do everything within our power to resolve the issues at Arnolds Field, Launders Lane, and to ultimately put a stop to the fires and the smoke once and for all.
This includes taking action against the landowner, as we must reiterate, this is not Council-owned land, so our options are limited.
Despite the landowner’s claims that they’re trying to ‘improve the site for the local community’, the fact remains that they have not yet submitted a formal planning application, and we have seen no evidence to suggest they are serious in finding a solution.
Ultimately, the site belongs to them and it is their responsibility to make it safe – the ball is in their court and as they well know, we are ready to work with them to solve the problem.
Regardless of who owns the land, the Council has worked with agencies, professional experts and scientific researchers to carry out studies on the land so we can try to find the causes of the fires and the extent of any contaminants.
This has included installing air monitoring equipment around the site, which has been in place for over two years, and extensive soil sampling to better understand what’s been dumped there.
We have also undertaken several studies into health outcomes to see if there are any demonstrable impacts of the fires on the health of local residents.
All of the findings to these reports are available to view on the Council's Launders Lane webpage.
This administration has taken more action on Launders Lane since it took over the Council, than the previous administration did in 10 years and we will continue to do so.