Incinerator health study findings expected
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FINDINGS from a long-awaited study into the health impact of incinerators could be finally be published this year according to a minister’s reply to a Halton MP.
Steve Brine, parliamentary under secretary for health and social care, said the Small Area Health Statistics Unit is due to submit reports for peer review in early 2018 and that it is ‘likely’ for the papers to be published a few months later.
Mr Brine provided the information in a written response to Derek Twigg MP, who has been pressing for updates for several years.
Among those keen to find out the results will be campaigners, critics and residents in Weston Point, Runcorn, where the UK’s biggest waste incinerator became operational over two phases in 2014 and 2015, with a maximum capacity to burn 850,000 tonnes of rubbish each year.
The Health Protection Agency announced the health impact study in 2012, four years after the then Labour Government’s energy minister, the late Malcolm Wicks, had signed the go-ahead for the massive waste burner on Picow Farm Road.
Provisional results had been due to be published in 2014 but faced delays due to what was reported to be the ‘complexity’ of the data.
Researchers at world-leading Imperial College had been commissioned to carry out the study.
The HPA no longer exists and has been replaced by Public Health England.
Ministers have previously responded that Public Health England’s ‘position’ that ‘well-run and regulated modern municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health’ remains valid. ●