https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/eleventh-night-bonfires-entire-sand-base-was-contaminated-with-asbestos-council-meeting-hears/a699961258.html

Michelle Weir

Today at 18:17

Asbestos was mixed with sand at the base of a bonfire when it was set alight on the Eleventh Night, a council committee has heard.
The pyre was torched in Randalstown, Co Antrim.

A report presented to councillors at a meeting behind closed doors stated the “highly toxic and dangerous waste substance was found to have contaminated the entire bonfire sand base” in the car park at Neillsbrook Community Centre.

Eighty tonnes of sand were found to have been contaminated and had to be removed during the clean-up operation, the report stated.

The matter was discussed at Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council’s Community Development Committee.

The committee report explained: “Due to the significant health and safety risk of asbestos and the accessibility of the site to the public, the council’s appointed asbestos consultant was contacted immediately to test for the presence of the substance. Approximately 80 tonnes of sand was deemed contaminated and had to be removed.

“The dispersal and mixing of the asbestos throughout the sand indicate that this toxic waste was within the bonfire before the lighting of the bonfire on July 11.”

The report also highlighted the “unavoidable urgency for removal due to the significant health and safety risk,” adding that the council “could not adhere to the time limits for a procurement process” to cover the undisclosed cost of the clean-up.

Councillors were advised it was “unlikely that those responsible would be identified”.

It was noted the quantity of sand base, laid with paving stone, forms a “normal part of the council’s ground protection measure” at this site.

At last month’s meeting of the borough council, members did a U-turn on a decision by the community development committee to impose a financial penalty on Neillsbrook following the discovery of asbestos for a breach in the terms and conditions of the local authority’s bonfire management programme.

Flags were set alight at four bonfire sites in the borough – Neillsbrook, Doonbeg and Rathmullan Drive, Rathcoole, Newtownabbey and at Ballycraigy in Antrim.

Speaking at the meeting, Ulster Unionist councillor Stewart Wilson said that the Neillsbrook group “feels they are the victims of an environmental crime”.

“The bonfire builders stand ready to engage with the council to improve security,” he added.

A vote on a DUP proposal for no sanctions and the current programme to remain in place resulted in 19 votes in favour and 18 against.

by Browns_right_foot

25 comments

  2. Might as well add some asbestos to the plethora of other chemicals flooded into the air and ground every 12th… Just be thankful we don’t have a decommissioned nuclear plant in our wee cuntry cause theesuns would all have us growing a third eye.

  3. Yeah but our government condemned their actions..

  4. I’m beginning to think we, as a region, need to experience some consequences.

  5. Would they have listened anyway? Wouldn’t want to intrude on der cullltchere

  6. Are the cops here capable of anything other than measuring car wrecks and getting cats out of trees? NI is truly a failed state.

  7. You could not make this up. Speaking at the meeting, Ulster Unionist councillor Stewart Wilson said that the Neillsbrook group “feels they are the victims of an environmental crime” – on rate payers land and an illegal fire. Jesus when will this charade end ?

  8. Irish on signs now this when will the dup every catch a break everything seems to be against them

  10. *“The bonfire builders stand ready to engage with the council to improve security,”* 

    I feel so much safer

  11. Don’t forget that those burning rubber tyres and chemical impregnated pallets definitely have an effect on the brain.

  12. If the fires are gonna be done, at least regulate them somehow. Like even people climbing without any harnesses is nuts or protection.

    And let it be a private even were they are responaible to rent the land and clean it up.

    The council shouldnt clean any of it. Its not a public event hosted by the government or council. Its groups of people. I cant hold a concert in town and let the council clean it and damage public property, and do that every year for decades. Id be lifted.

  13. So the DUP spend rate payers’ money on these schemes that have consequences if the rules are broken and then have a vote to say that there will be no consequences and they’ll do the same next year.

    Now apply the same logic to a toddler and wonder why you end up with a brat.

  14. I’m calling bullshit on this.

    It was the *pube*-shaped type of asbestos.

    Completely harmless… just bounces off your lungs. People are idiots.

  15. It was noted the quantity of sand base, laid with paving stone, forms a “normal part of the council’s ground protection measure” at this site.

    This implies that it’s ‘normal’ that councils put in some sort of prep work before a bonfire is built on a site, presumably an assessment and then footing the bill for ‘ground protection measures’

    I always naively assumed that bonfires were just surreptitiously started on old waste ground and by the time they got started the council/peelers don’t want to do anything about it for fear of causing trouble

    This makes the whole thing seem a lot more funded/organised – are there any sources that document any more about how this all works like YouTube vids or a write up somewhere?

  16. Jesus Christ, what a mess. All I can think about is the amount of children that would’ve been exposed to that shite. They don’t know any better, and now they could end up paying for it years down the line. And all because mummy or daddy wanted their wee night of ‘culture’

  19. Due to a genetic disorder unionists are immune to asbestos. One of them was bitten by an asbestos riddled spider as a baby and it just spread from there.

  22. If some republicans took all the tyres and asbestos and put them in a loyalist neighbourhood and burned them, they would go crazy about it..

    So… why are they willingly doing it to themselves??

  23. There needs to be a proper system of regulation and when necessary punishment. Something like this, no bonfires for five years on that site

  24. So in about 30/40 years when mesothelioma has killed most of the people breathing in the air from the bonfire, we can expect a demographic shift in the country?

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