Complaints A bout Chemical Factory

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 16

Complaints A bout Chemical Factory

Representatives of Kempthome Prosser and Company will meet critics of fumes from the company’s chemical factory at Hornby in the Papania County Council chambers this evening.

The meeting has been arranged by the council’s finance committee to give residents an opportunity to state their complaints and discuss pollution with factory representatives.

The Hornby Progress League has asked Mr P. V. Neary to represent it at the meeting. Mr Neary, who is

the Clean Air Society’s publicity officer, addressed a recent meeting of the league. One Hornby resident, Mr W. J. de Hart, of 6 Brynley Street, has written to Mr Neary about the health hazard to children in the area.

He said he was so concerned about the effect of fumes on his two-year-old daughter that he had closed in his veranda so that she could play there when the fumes were blowing in that direction. Mr de Hart’s letter said that he had had to cut down six trees that had rotted, and the windows of his house were so affected by the fumes from the factory that they had the effect of being sandblasted.

When he bought the house 18 months ago he was told that new equipment at the factory would eliminate the hazard. The new plant had made a difference, but there was still a definite health hazard. Mr de Hart said be came from Dundee, Scotland, where a bad smog problem had been eliminated by the City Council’s ban on smoke-pro-ducing fuels.